<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Tea Evasion by EllianaDunla</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27641678">Tea Evasion</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllianaDunla/pseuds/EllianaDunla'>EllianaDunla</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Being Human (UK), Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Case Fic, Gen, Sort Of</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:14:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>31,247</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27641678</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllianaDunla/pseuds/EllianaDunla</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sam and Dean meet a man who tells them that the girlfriend he murdered now lives with a werewolf and a vampire, the Winchesters know that this is exactly their sort of case. </p><p>Except it's not. </p><p>Featuring: Winchesters, housemates, misunderstandings, unusual weaponry and copious amounts of (undrinkable) tea.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prologue: I Killed My Girlfriend</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The crossover nobody asked for, but that I wrote anyway. The story itself is completely written and consists of a prologue, nine chapters and an epilogue. The prologue and first chapter you get today. Subsequent chapters will be published twice a week on Mondays and Fridays.<br/>This story is set sometime during season 4 of Supernatural and in the last two episodes of Being Human series 1.<br/>Happy reading!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>‘Seal saved, tea avoided,’ Dean said with not a small measure of triumph. ‘Job well done.’</p><p>There were times – not too many, especially not recently – that he loved his job. Occasionally a job didn’t go to hell halfway through, with a body count to match. In this case, no one had even died.</p><p>It hadn’t seemed like an easy job at first. Cas had simply shown up in their motel room, told them that he needed them to save a seal and urged them to pack so that he could send them to the place where it was all going to happen. There was a woman who was possessed by the demon. They simply had to expel the demon, then babysit the woman for twenty-four hours until some critical period had passed and the demon couldn’t do whatever it was going to do – Cas had not explained – for another three hundred years.</p><p>He had also not mentioned that the seal was in England.</p><p>Sam nodded. He looked tired, but then he had been too polite to refuse the tea or tip it, like Dean had when manners dictated he accept at least one cup, in the woman’s begonias. Expelling the demon had been easy. It was dealing with the demon’s unwilling host that was the trying bit. She was an old woman who had no idea what had happened to her, why it had happened to her and who these two young men were.</p><p>Being able to explain only two out of three had not brightened either of their moods either.</p><p>When Mrs Neville eventually understood that the two young men were not murderers and they were there for her protection, she had started to offer them tea. She had not stopped until at last the time was up and they could leave.</p><p>At which point Cas had failed to show for the return trip.</p><p>That he didn’t show up after the first prayer was fine; the dude was probably busy saving other seals. But five hours and as many prayers later and it was still a no show. Dean was not happy with that. No, scrap that, it really pissed him off, but for now the elation of a job well done and a demon outwitted lingered. Mrs Neville had kindly directed them towards the nearest bed and breakfast, so they could catch up on some sleep and see whether Cas had his ears on in the morning.</p><p>It was all too good to be true and it didn’t last long.</p><p>The streets were not busy and so the man walking like he had the devil himself at his heels stood out. He had his arms wrapped around his torso and kept looking over his shoulder, murmuring to himself. He also – literally – jumped at shadows. Dean veered out of his way. Sam tried to do the same, but the dude tripped and fell against Sam anyway.</p><p>It was true that there was a lot of Sam to avoid.</p><p>Sam steadied him and held him at arm’s length. Dean was pretty sure that the only reason the guy hadn’t run a mile yet was because Sam still held him.</p><p>‘You all right there?’ Dean asked. Never let it be said that he didn’t have manners. ‘You don’t look so well.’</p><p>He looked right at them. ‘I killed my girlfriend.’</p><p>‘O…kay.’</p><p>‘And now she lives with what I think is a werewolf and a vampire.’</p><p><em>Well</em>, Dean thought, <em>this is new</em>.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. A Vampire, a Ghost and a Werewolf (Walk Into a Hospital)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dean was all for dumping the guy with the nearest loony bin, but Sam wanted to hear him out. It was not as if Dean had any better places to be – <em>thanks again, Cas</em> – so he followed Sam and the jumpy dude – Owen, apparently – to the pub across the road for a beer and the full story. Owen had been on his way to the police to turn himself in, but when Sam assured him that yes, they really could protect him from vampires, werewolves and ghosts, he had agreed to tell them what happened.</p><p>‘I killed my girlfriend,’ he babbled. ‘I pushed her down the stairs.’</p><p>That was vengeful spirit material right there. Dean reluctantly had to agree with his brother that there might be something to this.</p><p>‘And you have seen her ghost,’ Sam prompted gently.</p><p>Owen nodded tearfully. He kept glancing at the door. ‘Yes. But I didn’t think that… Not until tonight.’</p><p>‘What happened tonight?’ Sam for some completely unknown reason still managed to sound friendly and sympathetic.</p><p>Sam was in general better at this sort of thing. Dean didn’t mind trying to get information out of people, especially if they were pretty women, but people like Owen, who went around murdering people and who generated a lot of work for people like Dean, that was another thing. He hated dealing with the ghosts of victims of men like Owen. They’d been hurt enough in life and now he had to kill them all over again.</p><p>He was <em>not </em>looking forward to this.</p><p>‘I went to the house,’ Owen said. He drained the rest of his beer in one go. ‘They were all there. And she… she said…’</p><p>‘What’s her name?’ Sam asked.</p><p>Always good to know for when they had to find the grave to dig up the bones.</p><p>‘Annie. Her name was Annie.’ He went for the glass again only to find that it was empty. ‘And she said that… I hadn’t asked myself what else existed.’</p><p>Most people didn’t. The ones that knew had to do something with that information. And from the looks of things, Owen wasn’t dealing with it so well.</p><p>‘She said I should see George on a full moon and that Mitchell was killing before I was even born and then his eyes went black,’ Owen continued. Dean upgraded the Mitchell dude from vampire to demon. Crap. ‘And then she told me.’ By this point he was sobbing into his empty glass.</p><p>‘Told you what?’</p><p>‘What the dead know,’ he whimpered.</p><p>Well. This <em>was </em>new. And none of it made any sense whatsoever. It was unusual enough to find a ghost who both knew that she was dead and who could interact somewhat reasonably with the rest of the world. But this was the first time he had heard of one who shared a house with a supposed werewolf and a demon. And they all ganged up on the ghost’s murderer. Dean was in a hurry to get back to the States, but he was also a hunter.</p><p>‘What am I supposed to do?’ Owen asked.</p><p>Dean had an answer to that. ‘You should turn yourself in to the police,’ he said. ‘Just don’t mention all the freaky supernatural stuff.’</p><p>Owen blinked. ‘I shouldn’t?’</p><p>Dean <em>really</em> didn’t like this man. ‘They might not take you seriously,’ he pointed out, ignoring Sam’s warning ‘Dean…’ that told him to stop. Besides, people could be cured in the madhouse – or whatever it was that the British used for crazy nutjobs like Owen – and then they’d be released to do their crazy shit all over again. Men who pushed their girlfriend down the stairs were not supposed to be free ever again. ‘They wouldn’t arrest you and then you’d have to fend for yourself in the big bad world.’</p><p>Owen cast a pleading look in their direction. ‘Couldn’t you…?’</p><p>The response was a resounding and simultaneous ‘<em>no</em>’ from both brothers.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>They decided to wait until the next morning to go to the house and see what they’d find. Dean had not so much accompanied as followed Owen to the nearest police station and then had loitered outside for long enough to make sure he did not walk back out again. Sam thought it was overkill, but Dean had <em>that</em> expression on his face and Sam knew better than to argue with that.</p><p>Truth be told, after what Owen had told him Sam had rather wanted a shower as well.</p><p>The house was pink.</p><p>This was not what he pictured as the residence of supernatural creatures. It was old and run-down, but it was also pink.</p><p>Dean had a grin on his face.</p><p>‘I don’t want to hear it,’ Sam said, pre-empting whatever comment his brother had been about to make.</p><p>The idea was to go over and knock on the door posing as two American students doing a paper on living conditions in England. It wasn’t their best cover story to date, but it was the best they had on such short notice. They could at least have a good look around and then see if there was any truth to Owen’s statements. In the light of day they did seem far-fetched, even for two seasoned hunters. Different supernatural creatures did not usually cohabit. Sam had never seen it and he was pretty sure that if his father had ever come across such a thing it would be in his journal.</p><p>It wasn’t.</p><p>They knocked on the door and waited.</p><p>‘They’re not home!’ a woman called from the other side of the street after about a minute.</p><p>‘They’re not?’</p><p>She shook her head, then crossed the street so that she could talk to them without having to shout at them. ‘Are you friends?’</p><p>‘Yes,’ Sam said, improvising on the spot. ‘They were expecting us…’</p><p>‘One of them was stabbed,’ she said. ‘Last night. Some stranger, just knocked on the door and stabbed Mitchell. Touched in the head, probably. Then he went and ran off.’</p><p>Sam frowned. ‘Who? Mitchell?’</p><p>She looked at him as though she thought <em>he</em> was touched in the head too. ‘No, the madman. And they haven’t caught him, you know, the police. Fat lot of use they are.’</p><p>‘But is Mitchell alive?’ Sam asked, inserting some urgency into his tone. This kept getting stranger all the time.</p><p>‘Think so,’ she said. ‘The ambulance came and took him and the other two went with him. The nice one, George, he asked if I could lock up and push the keys through the letterbox.’ She thought for a moment. ‘There was a lot of blood.’ She sounded less concerned neighbour and more gossipy peering-at-her-neighbours-from-behind-her-begonias.</p><p>A demon that bled after being stabbed? He knew Ruby’s knife could kill a demon, but death was instantaneous. Mitchell was – probably – still alive. The more he heard, the more questions he had.</p><p>‘That’s really bad,’ Dean said, finally contributing to the conversation. ‘Eh, do you know what hospital he’s in?’</p><hr/><p> </p><p>In the end Sam went to the hospital and Dean went to do some research on demons and what they were and weren’t supposed to survive. Usually it was the other way around, but Sam did not think – and fortunately Dean agreed with him – that it was likely that Dean could successfully pass himself off as a specialist doctor come to investigate the strange case that was brought in last night. He was going out on a limb here, but at this stage he’d be very surprised if there wasn’t something physically off with this Mitchell.</p><p>‘Oh, thank God!’ Dr Adams said when Sam had announced his purpose. ‘I thought I was losing my mind for a moment there.’</p><p>‘The brief was a little vague,’ Sam said. ‘Could you tell me what is wrong with him?’</p><p>‘You mean apart from the big hole in his chest?’ Dr Adams barked a laugh completely devoid of humour. ‘The guy doesn’t have a heartbeat, his body temperature is far below normal. Any ordinary human being wouldn’t even be alive, never mind healing. Ah, do you mind if we go outside? I really need a smoke after the night I’ve had.’</p><p>His hands were shaking and Sam doubted the craving for a cigarette was all that caused it. So he was nice and obliging and followed the harried doctor to the designated area where smoking was apparently allowed.</p><p>‘Do you have a light?’ the doctor asked. ‘Sorry, don’t know where my head’s at.’</p><p>Sam always had a light and it was usually not for something as innocent as lighting a cigarette. He kept that thought to himself.</p><p>‘And I know this guy,’ the doctor said, hands still shaking. ‘He works here. Mops the floor, cleans up, does a competent job too. I know him to say hello to, you know, but he’s ordinary, perfectly ordinary. And now this!’</p><p>‘So what actually happened?’ he asked.</p><p>‘Someone stuck a stick into his chest,’ Dr Adams replied. He did seem a little calmer now. ‘Like someone smashed a chair to pieces, grabbed the leg and planted it in his chest. That kind of stick.’</p><p>That was how an amateur would do it, someone who didn’t bother with any research whatsoever before they charged in all guns blazing. Beheading was the only thing that worked with vampires and Sam was not even convinced that this Mitchell was one. The black eyes suggested demon to him. ‘That’s… crazy.’</p><p>‘Crazy’s the word,’ Dr Adams agreed. He blew some more smoke into the air. ‘Few more inches and he’d have hit the heart. You’d think he’d have bled out before he ever made it to the hospital, but nope, he’s already sitting up and talking to the nurses. He’s <em>healing</em>, for heaven’s sake. I could swear the wound is smaller than it was a few hours ago, when we finally finished digging all the splinters out of his chest.’ He shook his head. ‘They said you’re a specialist. Have you ever seen anything like this?’</p><p>‘No,’ Sam said, truthfully. The individual symptoms, yes, but never in one creature. Whatever Mitchell was, he was something new. ‘Would you mind if I examined him?’</p><p>‘Please, be my guest.’</p><p>Mitchell was sitting up in bed, but he wasn’t talking to any of the nurses. He sat on the edge of the bed, looking out of the window. Yeah, he looked like crap, but it was the kind of crap that said <em>I got beaten up in a fight last night</em> not the crap that stated <em>I nearly died twelve hours ago because someone stuck a wooden stake in my chest.</em></p><p>Sam cleared his throat. ‘Mr Mitchell?’ The guy was called John Mitchell according to the paperwork, but so far no one had referred to him by his first name.</p><p>‘Yes.’ Furious swiping of his hands across his face indicated that he was trying to hide the evidence of tears, another first with demons. He looked around. ‘Who are you?’ Even a deaf man could have heard the suspicion in his voice.</p><p>‘Dr Jones,’ Sam replied, as business-like as he could manage. ‘I’m specialised in rare conditions. The doctors called me in last night.’</p><p>Alarm flashed across his face for a second. ‘Aren’t you a bit young for a doctor?’</p><p>‘Child prodigy.’ Dean had accused him of that often enough and usually not in complimentary tones. ‘Do you mind if I do some tests?’</p><p>Mitchell’s face clearly expressed hesitation. Chances were he knew perfectly well that any tests were going to yield unusual results, which would result in people asking lots of questions. ‘That’s probably not a good idea. Look, I’m fine.’</p><p>Yeah, and that was what worried Sam. The guy looked human enough, but nothing else about this injury was natural. ‘It will only take a minute,’ he assured him. ‘And then you can go if you like. We’re not going to dissect you.’ <em>We might have to kill you. </em></p><p>Mitchell hesitated, but then nodded. ‘Okay.’</p><p>The standard tests yielded no other results than Dr Adams had already warned him about: no discernible heartbeat, skin unnaturally cold, though not as cold as he had expected. He had no reaction to silver – cleverly disguised as medical equipment – on his naked skin and the same was true for iron.</p><p>
  <em>What is this guy?</em>
</p><p>‘Mind if I have a look at the wound?’ he asked.</p><p>Mitchell had borne the examination in silence, his thoughts apparently miles away. His eyes had glassed over and it took him a while to realise that Sam had in fact asked him a question. ‘Sure, be my guest.’ If Sam had not been reasonably certain that monsters did not cry as a rule, he might have thought Mitchell was on the verge of it.</p><p>It was small. It was too small to have been inflicted only last night. But it had. The skin was new and fragile and the scabbed over area smaller than it should have been. He fancied he could almost see it heal. He’d been hunting for a long time, but he had never come across something quite like this before.</p><p>‘It looks good,’ he told Mitchell.</p><p>He got a non-committal ‘hm’ for his efforts. It was a bit beyond his imagination why this dude had apparently scared the living daylights out of Owen last night. There was nothing particularly frightening about him.</p><p>Still, he’d better finish his tests. ‘Can you stand up for me please?’</p><p>Mitchell stood. If he really was a demon he should not have been able to do that after Sam had placed a piece of paper with a devil’s trap under the mattress. Not a demon then. Definitely not a demon. Could the black eyes Owen had seen be contact lenses? A trick of the light maybe? Then again, there was no doubt in Sam’s mind now that Mitchell was not human.</p><p>‘Are you done?’ Mitchell asked. ‘George’ll be back any minute now.’</p><p>‘Almost,’ Sam said. Dean was not going to be pleased if he came back with exactly nothing conclusive, so he “accidentally” dropped his bag and said: ‘Christo!’</p><p>The reaction was immediate; Mitchell’s eyes went pitch black, he staggered back against the bed and hissed.</p><p>Not good.</p><p>‘Excuse me!’ an indignant voice exclaimed from behind him. ‘What are you doing to my friend?’</p><p>Sam turned around just long enough to get a brief impression of a guy with glasses and disproportionally large ears and then something heavy collided with his head.</p><p>Also not good.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next time: Dean meets an unusual ghost, while Sam is invited to explain himself.<br/>You may have already noticed that I am more familiar with British English than American English, so I’ll stick with what I know. Yes, I know that’s probably not right for Supernatural, but I’ll make fewer mistakes that way. <br/>Thank you very much for reading. Reviews would be very welcome and much appreciated.<br/>Until Monday!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Mops and Umbrellas</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dean had gone back to the bed and breakfast only to find that the Wi-Fi was on the blink. His father’s journal only got him so far – which was to say exactly nowhere – so he went back to the pink house instead. The nosy neighbour was nowhere in sight, but to be sure Dean went round the back, climbed over the fence and picked the lock on the backdoor.</p><p>It led into a messy kitchen. The dishes hadn’t been done in a while; they were piled up beside the sink. There were no sounds and there was clearly nobody home. He’d taken the EMF meter, pilfered from Sam’s bag. It registered some activity, but not the kind it would when there was a ghost in the house. This was just leftovers, echoes. It was broad daylight; perhaps she wouldn’t show until tonight.</p><p>He walked from the kitchen into the hallway and found the stairs Annie Sawyer had been pushed down with ease; the cracked tiles at the bottom confirmed it. It seemed a bit tasteless to leave them, but hey, these Brits were weird. There was blood too, fresher. Mitchell’s probably. Dean thought about taking a sample, but he wasn’t a doctor, so he probably couldn’t figure it out anyway.</p><p>The living room was as messy as the kitchen, but the EMF meter didn’t screech at him here either, so upstairs he went. The bathroom looked like it was due for a clean and there was dirty laundry everywhere. The first bedroom was small, but tidy and welcoming save for the hideous wallpaper. Far too many gnomes stared at him from the wall.</p><p>‘Dude, freaky.’ So far it was the most abnormal thing he’d found in the entire house.</p><p>The second bedroom revealed that the owner was probably responsible for most of the mess in the house, but it was all clothes, books and old records. Nothing suggested so far that this was the residence of a supernatural creature whatsoever.</p><p>The third and final bedroom was not a bedroom at all. A comfortable chair stood in the middle of the room. Two cupboards stood on either side against the wall. Other than that, the room was empty.</p><p>It was here at last that the EMF meter gave off a little noise, but not enough to worry him. Echoes, nothing recent.</p><p>Disappointed, he put it back in his pocket. It might be the wrong time of day for the ghost to appear. According to Owen he’d killed Annie at night-time. It might be the only time she was visible. Then again, the neighbours seemed to know her. The nosy woman across the street said that both the supposed werewolf and the ghost had gone with the demon to the hospital.</p><p>So far he’d had more questions than answers.</p><p>It didn’t seem such a strange idea that Owen had been completely insane and had made the whole thing up. So far everything about these three sounded boringly normal.</p><p>He looked at the chair, as if it might have all the answers, when he heard water running downstairs.</p><p>Well, crap.</p><p>The window was too small to let him through, so he must get out through the door somehow. So he sneaked down the stairs, avoiding the one that creaked as he remembered from the journey upstairs. From the kitchen area he heard noises, suggesting that someone was moving around, shifting dishes. Nothing indicated that he had been heard.</p><p>But it seemed unavoidable that someone heard him, because as he stood on the last step the EMF meter began to screech and it didn’t stop. Even the dead – ha! – couldn’t fail to hear it. The noises from the kitchen stopped.</p><p>Not good.</p><p>Dean abandoned all attempts at stealth and stepped into the hallway. In the doorway to the kitchen a young woman stood, kettle in hand, staring.</p><p>‘Who are you?’ she demanded. She looked around for anything that could double as a weapon and settled on an umbrella leaning against a nearby wall.</p><p>The EMF meter screeched a little louder.</p><p>Wait, she was the ghost?</p><p>‘Can you turn that thing off?’ she shouted.</p><p>This was new. Dean had seen more than his fair share of ghosts, but he’d not met one who looked so… He struggled for a moment before settling on <em>alive</em>. This ghost looked so very alive.</p><p>‘Right,’ he said. She didn’t seem all that violent, with the kettle in one hand and the umbrella inexpertly in the other. He switched it off and put it back in his pocket. The hall was very quiet all of a sudden.</p><p>‘Who are you?’ she demanded. She put the kettle down on a side table in favour of grasping the umbrella with both hands. ‘What are you doing here? Hold on, are you with them? Did Herrick send you?’</p><p>It seemed wiser to put his hands in the air and do as she asked. ‘I am Dean,’ he said. ‘Who is Herrick?’</p><p>It seemed that this was the right answer; she lowered the umbrella a bit, before she realised that he was still a burglar and she brought it up again. ‘Well, what are you doing here, then?’</p><p>He thought about lying and then thought better of it. She’d already seen him where he was not supposed to be. ‘I met your fiancé,’ he said.</p><p>Several emotions flashed across her face. Realisation, shock, horror, alarm, satisfaction, alarm again. He tried to identify them all, but they passed so fast that he was sure that he had missed a few.</p><p>‘Oh,’ she said at last, looking at her feet. ‘That’s nice.’</p><p>Nice was not a word that described Owen. At all. Even thinking about him made Dean’s skin crawl. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was not nice.’</p><p>The ghost studied him intensely, holding the umbrella as though she was seriously considering hitting him with it. ‘He’s not a good man,’ she said.</p><p>‘He said he killed you.’ It’d be interesting to see what she made of that.</p><p>Judging from her lack of a response, not much.</p><p>The EMF meter didn’t lie, so he was pretty sure that she was dead, but it was hard to tell from just looking at her. Was it possible that she didn’t realise that she was dead? She would not be the first ghost who needed a wake-up call. ‘I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but you’re dead.’ He waited for that to sink in, but when it did not elicit any sort of reply, he repeated himself: ‘You’re dead.’</p><p>She crossed her arms over her chest, umbrella still in her hand. ‘Your point being?’</p><p>
  <em>What?</em>
</p><p>‘You’re not alive,’ Dean said, trying to keep his voice gentle. ‘You’re not supposed to be here.’</p><p>‘I think that’s actually dead-ist.’ The response was not what he’d expected. What else was new? ‘You’re discriminating against the dead.’</p><p>He’d never met a ghost who made that point before. Usually they were too busy throwing him into things to pay much attention to the finer philosophy of his job.</p><p>He was still looking for words – not an easy task, since he was definitely caught on the back foot with this line of thought – when another look of alarm crossed her face. ‘You… you’re not here because I didn’t go through the door, are you?’</p><p>‘What door?’ he asked, but even when he did he knew exactly what she was talking about. It was just that he did not much care to remember… anything from that time in too much detail. Fat chance of that, now that she had started about it. A rapid succession of images flashed across his mind’s eye, of horror and hounds and pain and a door that he was dragged through kicking and screaming into a place that was worse than he could possibly put into words. It stood to reason that for some people there was something better behind that door.</p><p>But she had apparently declined it.</p><p>The ghost studied him carefully. ‘So, you’re not here about the door,’ she said, a statement rather than a question.</p><p>‘No,’ he replied. He didn’t think he was. At least not yet.</p><p>A brilliant smile lit up her face. ‘Great,’ she said and all of a sudden she was right before him. When ghosts did that it was usually so that they could throw him across the room. That was not the case with this ghost. Still smiling at him, she extended a hand. ‘I’m Annie. Nice to meet you.’</p><p>Still very much out of his comfort zone he shook the hand. It was cold and not quite corporeal, but it was far more real than any ghost he’d ever met before.</p><p>‘Now, the really important question,’ Annie said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Sam’s head was pounding viciously when he came to. For most people this would be so out of the ordinary that they’d need a few moments to put themselves back together. Sam was not most people. Sam was a hunter.</p><p>He jumped to his feet.</p><p>It was not a good idea. Not only did the whole world move – it definitely was not supposed to do that – but he was not allowed to get far either. Before he could see the face of his assailant, he was already pushed back into the chair. When his vision cleared he saw the guy from before, the one with the glasses and the giant ears, brandishing a mop with menace.</p><p>‘Sit down.’ The tone was very prim and proper, the sentiment was not.</p><p>As if Sam had a choice.</p><p>‘Now, what did you do to my friend?’ Ears demanded.</p><p>Just behind Ears Mitchell sat on the bed, still looking like death warmed over, but still very much alive and definitely unhurt. He still looked like crap, supernatural crap at that, but mostly he looked like a guy who’d had a very bad day. If not for the black eyes and the lack of a heartbeat, Sam might have been fooled.</p><p>‘Nothing,’ Sam said.</p><p>Ears clearly didn’t believe a word of it. He brandished the mop even more menacingly and closer to Sam’s face. ‘What. Did. You. Do. To. My. Friend.’ The voice was still very measured and calm.</p><p>‘Nothing. I mean it!’ He sat back even if only to get away from the mop. ‘I just… cursed.’ Not exactly true. ‘And then his eyes went black.’</p><p>Ears narrowed his eyes at him. ‘Then what is this?’ To Sam’s dismay he held up the piece of paper on which he’d drawn the Devil’s Trap. ‘Are you… a devil worshipper or something?’ He turned to Mitchell. ‘Are they real? Do they exist?’</p><p>Mitchell shrugged.</p><p>‘So, what did you do?’</p><p>There was a point when a hunter sensed that more lies were not going to cut it. Sam’s refined hunter senses told him that this point had just been reached. ‘Listen, if it helps, I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ He hadn’t. ‘I just wanted to figure out what you are.’</p><p>‘Well, you could have tried asking?’ Ears suggested. ‘Have you never heard of introductions?’</p><p>In this case Mitchell was more observant. ‘He asked <em>what</em>, George, not <em>who</em>.’</p><p>Even then it took Ears, George, a few more moments to get it. He looked from Sam to Mitchell and back again. His mouth opened and closed a few times, but no sounds came out. The expressions on his face ranged from disbelief to alarm, with a brief stop at an expression Sam could only describe as are-you-bloody-kidding-me.</p><p>Mitchell meanwhile, suddenly far more alert than he had been so far, studied Sam intently. ‘You’re a hunter, aren’t you?’ Yes, he sounded suspicious, but not alarmed. Yet. He didn’t seem hostile either, which was definitely new.</p><p>‘A hunter?’ George echoed. ‘Well, why isn’t he shooting deer? What’s he doing <em>here</em>?’ His voice rose an octave at the last word.</p><p>‘He’s not hunting game,’ Mitchell explained to his friend, although he never took his eyes off Sam. ‘He hunts things like us. Supernatural.’</p><p>George did not take that calmly; the mop flailed in every direction. Sam had to duck twice to avoid being clobbered inadvertently around the head with it. Mitchell had included him in the category of supernatural creatures, but George looked as human as they came. He reminded Sam of those people who’d just been told that the supernatural was real and they weren’t taking it very well.</p><p>‘Oh,’ George said at last and now he was well on his way to indignation. ‘Oh, no, no, that’s it! First werewolves are real, then vampires and ghosts and now you’re telling me that there are people who are actually hunting <em>us</em>? That… That is….’</p><p>He didn’t seem capable of saying what exactly that was, but it didn’t seem he approved.</p><p>He regained his composure – or a bit of that at least – at last and pointed the mop at Sam again. ‘You. What are you doing here?’ He remembered something. ‘And you never said. What exactly did you do to my friend?’ He glanced over his shoulder at said friend who still sat on the bed. ‘Are you all right, Mitchell?’</p><p>Mitchell nodded. ‘Just not good with all the religious stuff,’ he said. ‘It’s gone now.’</p><p>George squared his shoulders. ‘So,’ he said, bringing the mop in a little closer, ‘what did you do to him?’</p><p>‘I was just trying to figure out what he was,’ Sam replied, trying to look as unthreatening as possible. ‘I did not really try to hurt him. I mean it.’ He might have to eventually, but the more he saw of these two, the more he began to believe that they were not that dangerous.</p><p>For George this was nowhere near the right answer. ‘Why were you doing that in the first place?’ he demanded, panic mingling with the indignation. ‘We’re not hurting anyone. We’re just two blokes trying to live our lives without interference from vampires and werewolves and… and… hunters. For heaven’s sake, we’re just, just trying to be <em>human</em>. What is so wrong with that?’ He became a lot more agitated again.</p><p>‘George,’ Mitchell warned softly. ‘It’s all right. It’s what he does.’</p><p>He painted himself a convenient target for George’s anger. ‘No!’ he declared, waving the mop in Mitchell’s direction. ‘No, it is <em>not</em> all right! Not with this whole thing with the vampires and Herrick and you nearly dying and now this?’ He indicated Sam. ‘It is not all right.’</p><p>Sam quietly filed the mention of vampires and the name Herrick away for the future; it didn’t seem wise to test George’s patience just right now.</p><p>Sure enough the mop was under his nose just a moment later. ‘What are you even doing here?’ he demanded. ‘How did you find us?’</p><p>He briefly considered leaving Owen out of this – protect his source from supernatural vengeance – but Dean really wasn’t alone in his disgust of that man. Owen deserved everything he got. ‘I met Annie’s fiancé,’ he said, leaving Dean out of it for the time being. ‘He seemed to think that she lived with a werewolf and a vampire.’</p><p>It was just a second and if he’d blinked he might have missed it, but for just a moment the two men wore twin looks of grim satisfaction.</p><p>‘He’s turned himself into the police to confess to the murder of his girlfriend,’ Sam continued, figuring that this was probably going to go down well. It did. ‘But not before he told me what he knew.’</p><p>‘Well,’ Mitchell said. ‘That can’t be much.’</p><p>‘He knows about us.’ George stabbed a finger in Sam’s direction. ‘And now he wants to kill us, which is really rude, by the way.’</p><p>‘I don’t want to kill you,’ Sam protested.</p><p>It didn’t seem George heard him. He was still making his case. ‘Which is so unfair, because we manage our conditions! I mean, I lock myself up every month so I don’t hurt people while… <em>it</em> is in charge. And he?’ He stabbed aggressively in Mitchell’s direction. ‘He is on the wagon! Have you ever heard about that? Have you ever met a vampire who’s kicked the habit of drinking blood?’ Sam couldn’t say he had, but then again it was not as if he got the chance to make that point, because George barrelled on without waiting for an answer: ‘And meanwhile there’s vampires running rampant and of course no one cares about that, so <em>we</em> get a… hunter after us. This is so unfair!’</p><p>George was probably not having a good day.</p><p>In any case it appeared he had at last run out of words, so Sam took that opportunity to make a case of his own: ‘I am not here to kill you,’ he stressed. ‘Seriously. It’s just what I do. It’s my job to check these things out.’ And it began to sound like he really had stumbled across a case here, even if it wasn’t the one he thought he was going to find. ‘It sounded like something was going on here.’</p><p>‘Something <em>is</em> going on.’ George put down the mop so that he could cross his arms over his chest in his quest to look even more indignant. ‘But not with us.’</p><p>Sam was beginning to believe that this was true. ‘All right, I believe you.’ He held up his hands. ‘Listen, I don’t think you’re dangerous, but it sounds like the thing with the… vampires is. Perhaps I can help?’</p><p>Mitchell noticed the hesitation. ‘What?’</p><p>Honesty was probably the best policy. ‘Are you a vampire?’</p><p>Mitchell snorted, then closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were pitch black. He also opened his mouth a little, just enough to show the very un-vampire like fangs that hadn’t been there earlier. He blinked again and the black disappeared and the fangs retracted. ‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure.’</p><p>‘Looks more like demon to me,’ Sam countered. But if that was what he was, then why did he get out of a Devil’s Trap? ‘The vampires I’ve hunted have a whole mouthful of fangs.’</p><p>Mitchell frowned. ‘That’s a bit much.’</p><p>‘All the better for ripping their victims’ throats out.’</p><p>George looked disgusted.</p><p>Mitchell seemed mildly intrigued, but not much. ‘Different kind of vampire, maybe. The States are a long way off. My kind don’t come there often.’ He didn’t seem to care much. He seemed to have his mind on more pressing matters. ‘What do you plan to do?’</p><p>For the sake of his own safety, he began with what was most important: ‘I don’t plan to kill you.’</p><p>George calmed down considerably.</p><p>‘And maybe I could help you with your vampire problem?’</p><p>Mitchell nodded. George took a little longer to convince, so Sam let the silence gather until he at last made up his mind. ‘All right. You can come to tea and then we’ll see.’</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next time: it’s getting-to-know-you time. Which won’t be weird. And awkward. At all.<br/>Thank you so much for reading. Reviews would absolutely brighten my day, so do feel free to leave one.<br/>Until Friday!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Getting-to-Know-You Sessions</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>There was a first time for everything, Dean reflected. There was a first time to shoot a gun, the first time to salt and burn a body, the first time to drive a car. This was a day of firsts, but not the kinds he thought to have. Here he was, inside a pink house, watching a ghost doing the dishes whilst he sat and watched her do it.</p><p>‘Do you want me to help?’ he asked hesitantly, well and truly out of his comfort zone. Honestly, there were little rubber boats in the middle of the ocean that were far less at sea than Dean was at this moment.</p><p>Annie smiled at him. ‘You could dry, if you want.’</p><p>He didn’t particularly want, but he knew how to roll with the punches. How long was it since he’d done the dishes anyway? Usually, when there were actually plates involved in his meals, they belonged to a diner. Bobby occasionally made them eat off plates and he definitely demanded that his guests did their share in cleaning up, although in Dean’s case that usually meant shunting off the work onto Sam claiming the older brother rights, because rock-paper-scissors just never really worked for him all that well for some reason.</p><p>‘Sure.’</p><p>If Annie thought that there was anything strange about this arrangement at all, she never said. She simply handed him a tea towel and got on with business.</p><p>‘So,’ she said. ‘What were you doing here?’</p><p>‘I met your fiancé,’ Dean replied. ‘He seemed to think he’d been threatened by a ghost, a vampire and a werewolf.’</p><p>Annie smiled. ‘He did, didn’t he?’ She looked horribly pleased with herself. ‘What happened?’</p><p>‘He told us the story and then turned himself in to the police.’ That last one was a good memory. ‘I followed him there and he didn’t walk back out again.’ He really shouldn’t walk back out again. Dean had reservations about helping this ghost to the afterlife, but he had none whatsoever about ganking this bad son of a bitch if he ever walked free again.</p><p>Annie smiled a little wider.</p><p>‘How’d that happen anyway?’ Dean asked. It occurred to him as he dried that he was handling lots and lots of cups and mugs. Why did a household of three people – one of whom didn’t eat or drink – generate so many dirty mugs? He was half tempted to pick up the EMF meter to check if there was something unnatural going on with that.</p><p>‘Well,’ said Annie, all business-like, ‘I tried being scary first.’</p><p>She looked about as scary as a fluffy puppy. ‘O…kay.’</p><p>‘That didn’t really work.’</p><p>No shit, Sherlock. ‘What did you do?’</p><p>‘Well, I waited for him in the house when the boys were out,’ she reported. ‘In the dark. For ambiance. Then George texted him that he wanted Owen to come and take a look at the pipes, because they were clanging again. Owen is, <em>was</em> our landlord, you see.’</p><p>‘And?’ Dean asked, mildly intrigued. This day couldn’t possibly get any weirder anyway.</p><p>‘And… that didn’t really work.’ He’d never seen a ghost look embarrassed before. Another first. ‘George said I should think about the effect I wanted to have, so I did, because I wanted him to confess what he’d done, and then I threw in some freaky stuff.’ She lowered her voice and pulled some odd faces to give a practical demonstration. ‘Confessss! I am darkness. I am death!’ She looked at Dean’s very unimpressed face and shrugged. ‘Didn’t really work on Owen either.’</p><p>He was not surprised. ‘You should have tried tossing him across the room,’ he suggested and was he really giving a ghost pointers on how to hurt people now? Then again, if anyone deserved it, it was that douchebag.</p><p>‘I can do that?’</p><p>‘Most ghosts can,’ Dean said. ‘If they’re pissed enough.’ Which was all of them, well, all of them that he ever met anyway. His job would suck a lot less if there were more ghosts like Annie.</p><p>‘So how do you know all of that anyway? Are you a ghostbuster or something like that?’ She was interested rather than alarmed. This girl really had no sense of self-preservation to speak of.</p><p>‘Something like that.’ She had asked. ‘Anything supernatural that hurts people, I hunt it and kill it.’</p><p>He half expected to be thrown across the room for that, but wasn’t. Annie looked at him pensively instead. ‘We didn’t really hurt people,’ she pointed out.</p><p>More or less true. ‘You didn’t. What about your housemates?’</p><p>At last she became defensive. ‘George locks himself up every month.’ She put the plate she was handling back in the soapy water and crossed her arms over her chest. ‘He really doesn’t want to hurt people.’</p><p>It did not escape his notice that she said nothing about the other one. ‘And Mitchell?’ he pressed.</p><p>‘Is on the wagon.’</p><p>‘’Scuse me?’</p><p>‘You know, he doesn’t drink blood anymore,’ Annie clarified. ‘Which is why the other vampires hate him. We had to rescue him, just yesterday.’</p><p>‘O…kay?’</p><p>She looked vaguely sheepish. ‘Well, George just brandished his Star of David and I knocked one over the back with a chair, but we got him out.’ Now she grinned. ‘We were like the world’s gayest ninjas.’</p><p>‘Did you dress up all cool?’ he enquired before he could help himself.</p><p>Annie laughed. If anything, it made her look and sound even more alive. ‘Can’t,’ she said, plucking at her clothes self-consciously. ‘I died in this, so…’</p><p>‘Well, at least you were wearing clothes when you died,’ Dean said. ‘Because let me tell you, that doesn’t always happen.’ Annie gave him an inquisitive look, so he figured he might as well tell the story. As it happened, it was one of the funnier ones: ‘Must have been about two years ago, don’t really remember where, but there was this dude who got offed by his wife. She was cheating, but she didn’t want to divorce him, because then he’d take all the money and the guy was loaded. So one night he thought he was undressing for a bit of midnight fun with his wife, only it turned out that she had other plans and she slit his throat instead.’</p><p>Annie winced.</p><p>‘Yeah, not good,’ Dean agreed. ‘So after she’d done the deed, she buried the body under the vegetable patch, reported her husband as missing and moved her new boyfriend into the house.’</p><p>‘The same one where she killed her husband?’ Annie asked disbelievingly.</p><p>‘The very same one,’ Dean agreed. Supernatural creatures caused all sorts of shenanigans, but they did it because it was their nature. Humans were supposed to know better, but sometimes he thought that demons could learn a thing or two from them. ‘Only it didn’t work out as she wanted to, because the husband stuck around. Wasn’t long before the wife and the new boy toy began to complain about flickering lights and cold spots. They ignored it, but then the neighbours began to complain about a naked man in the garden after dark.’</p><p>Annie giggled.</p><p>‘Well, Sam, my brother, and I were passing through, so we thought we’d check it out.’ Actually, Dean had wanted to check it out and Sam – with added bitchface – had accused him of voyeurism, but he’d tagged along anyway. Truth be told, half the fun for Dean was seeing Sam’s discomfort with the whole situation, which may or may not have added to Dean’s insistence that they investigate. ‘We drew up just as the husband turned up and finally worked up enough mojo to break into the house, all set to slit some throats of his own. Sam and I went after him, saved the ungrateful bitches in the house and then had to put up with a pissed couple and a pissed husband.’ And all the time Sam had barely known where to look, which was still absolutely hilarious, no matter what he said. ‘You ever tried fighting off a naked dude?’</p><p>‘Did you save the woman?’ Annie wanted to know, frowning.</p><p>‘Yeah, we did,’ Dean confessed. It still didn’t really sit right with him. ‘But the cops finally worked out what she’d done, so at least she’s behind bars now.’ He suspected he knew what bugged her about that. ‘Like Owen. He’s never going to do it again.’</p><p>She stared pensively ahead. ‘That’s good.’ She was quiet for another moment. Then: ‘I tried warning Janey Harris about him. His orange girlfriend,’ she added with derision.</p><p>‘Orange?’ Dean asked, wondering if he heard that right.</p><p>‘Orange,’ Annie confirmed. ‘She works at a tanning salon. I tried to warn her about Owen, only she fainted when she saw me.’</p><p>‘Not unusual.’</p><p>‘So I made her comfortable with a few pillows and I put her feet up, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it?’ She turned to Dean for confirmation. He made instant plans to try that one on Sam at the earliest possible opportunity. ‘Then she woke up and she thought that I wanted to cut her feet off. So she fled to the bathroom and locked the door.’</p><p>He despaired sometimes. ‘You’re a ghost, Annie. Locked doors shouldn’t be a problem.’</p><p>Lifelong instincts screamed at him that he should not have this conversation. He really shouldn’t tell ghosts how to haunt people, not even clueless ones like Annie. She didn’t really fit the mould, though. Most ghosts Dean had met did this stuff on pure ghost-instinct. They didn’t need to think about throwing stuff – and people – around, because that was their thing. Annie could teleport no problem, he’d seen that for himself. So why didn’t she know about locked doors? It was this that puzzled him, he decided, because why else was he still talking?</p><p>‘I know,’ she said. ‘But I thought she’d have a heart attack. And I did break into the house, so…’ She trailed off uncertainly. ‘I don’t think she really believed me anyway.’</p><p>‘Or she didn’t want to,’ Dean offered. ‘It’s safer sometimes to just believe it’s all a bad dream or that it’s not what it seems.’</p><p>‘Like I did with Owen,’ Annie said softly. ‘When I was alive.’</p><p>Dean didn’t know what to say to that.</p><p>‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she said resolutely. ‘Owen is gone.’ She looked at Dean as she handed him a mug to dry. ‘I could have moved on after that, you know. The door appeared. And I would have gone.’</p><p>‘But?’</p><p>‘Then Mitchell got stabbed.’ She didn’t say in so many words that she had chosen her friends over her chance at a decent afterlife, but she didn’t have to. And this was a motivation that he understood.</p><p>He definitely wasn’t going to force her now.</p><p>Which of course would be a bitch to explain to Sammy, so with the absolute pinnacle of Winchester luck he had no time whatsoever to think about it, because the front door opened to let three men into the house. And Sam was one of them.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>It took surprisingly little effort to persuade Dr Adams that Mitchell was much better off recuperating at home, provided he took it easy for a few days. It wasn’t as if they could do any tests on him that worked. Hospitals weren’t equipped to deal with supernatural patients after all. Besides, they could all see that Mitchell was as good as healed. True, he was still weak and appeared to really need the support George offered him.</p><p>‘Right,’ said George when they reached the car. ‘You,’ he pointed at Sam, ‘passenger seat where I can keep an eye on you. Mitchell, in the back.’</p><p>He could have protested, but it seemed wiser not to push his luck too far just yet. It was perhaps better that Dean could not see what he got up to, because he’d give him no end of grief over this. True, his brother was not as black and white in his views on monsters as he was a few years ago, but Sam was bound to stretch tolerance to the breaking point with this move. Better to work out what was what and clue Dean in when he himself knew what he wanted to do. Sometimes it was better to make these decisions uninfluenced.</p><p>So he did as he was told, noting with interest that Mitchell did not show up in the rear-view mirror. These British vampires seemed to be conforming to Hollywood stereotypes a lot more than the American ones. Once all this was over, he intended to have a go at Bobby’s books to see if he had more information.</p><p>Mitchell must have seen Sam look for a reflection that wasn’t there, because he commented wryly: ‘American vampires have reflections?’</p><p>‘Don’t know,’ Sam said. ‘I’ve never placed one in front of a mirror. They’re usually too busy trying to drink my blood.’</p><p>Mitchell chuckled, but the sound lacked real humour. ‘I’m not going to drink yours, if you were wondering.’ He frowned. ‘Even if I did drink blood, I don’t think I’d go for yours.’ He breathed in through his nose. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, mate, but you smell odd.’</p><p>‘Odd how?’ Sam asked, although he had a sinking feeling he knew exactly what Mitchell was talking about.</p><p>Mitchell pondered this for a few moments. ‘The smell’s all wrong,’ he said at last. ‘Not overwhelming, but just enough to not make me want it. Like… eggs that have gone off. George must have noticed.’ He turned to his friend behind the wheel for confirmation. ‘Especially this close to a full moon.’</p><p>George glared at him through the rear-view mirror. Sam had the impression that while Mitchell may have no qualms about discussing his supernatural status, George would prefer to pretend it didn’t exist. ‘Yes, I did,’ he said, sounding very put-out. ‘It’s just not polite to say it, is it? <em>Oh, did you know you smell like bad eggs, sir? No? Never mind</em>.’</p><p>‘You haven’t been a werewolf long, have you?’ Sam asked, trying very hard not to think about what this actually meant, whilst also trying very hard not to think of Ruby and what he had been doing with her. He didn’t feel like explaining this, so he made sure to get his own question in before they could follow up on this.</p><p>George glared some more, but now at him. ‘Not very long, no.’</p><p>Certainly not in comparison with Mitchell. He wasn’t fighting fit yet, anyone could see it, and Sam suspected he was still in pain as well, judging by the faces he pulled when he thought no one was watching, but he was quite laid back about being a vampire, as though it was something that had been part of him for so long that he could talk very matter-of-fact about it.</p><p>‘The Great War,’ Mitchell pre-empted the question Sam was thinking about asking.</p><p>‘World War One?’ That <em>was </em>a while ago.</p><p>‘We called it the Great War back then,’ Mitchell nodded. ‘But yes. It happened in France, 1915. I was sent out to find some missing men and I found them. Herrick and his cronies were having a feast. So, I made a bargain. They could have me and let them go. He kept his word. He did let them go. I thought I was going to die.’</p><p>‘But you didn’t.’ It was the same sort of stupid thing that Dean would do – <em>had</em> done – and Sam was torn between admiration and frustration.</p><p>Mitchell pulled a face. ‘That’s Herrick’s sense of humour for you.’</p><p>He’d heard that name before. ‘He’s the one…?’</p><p>‘Who stabbed Mitchell.’ Sam began to suspect that unamused and pissed were George’s default settings, although to be fair, he hadn’t met him on one of his good days. And if someone had stabbed Dean, Sam wouldn’t have been in the best of moods either.</p><p>He really should bring Dean up to speed. He wasn’t entirely convinced that these people were as harmless as they were trying to make themselves sound, but the vampires in general and Herrick in particular were a problem that needed dealing with. They should sort this out, sooner rather than later.</p><p>George’s annoyed response killed all conversation. Even so, Sam might have expected Mitchell to make some sort of contribution, but when he looked over his shoulder, he found that the resident vampire had fallen asleep. He sprawled over the back seat as if he didn’t have good reason to fear for his life.</p><p>Sam honestly didn’t know what to do with that show of faith.</p><p>‘You’re not going to kill him.’ It was unclear if this was a statement, a warning or a threat. It might have been all three at once.</p><p>‘I wasn’t,’ Sam protested. ‘I mean, it’s not the first vampire I’ve come across who didn’t drink blood. There’s this group in the States who survive on animal blood. Dean and I crossed paths with them about two years ago.’</p><p>He knew at once he made a mistake; George’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who is Dean?’</p><p>Honesty was probably his best option. ‘My brother. He hunts with me. He’s gone back to the bed and breakfast to do research.’ He really hoped that was true, because he knew very well that Dean’s patience for research was limited. It wasn’t entirely impossible that he had gone back to the house to get a closer look.</p><p>George probably would have stared him down if he hadn’t needed to keep his eyes on the road. As it was, the silence spoke volumes.</p><p>It wasn’t a long drive, but the frosty silence made it feel longer. It didn’t help that he was in a confined space with a werewolf and some strange breed of vampire. He felt antsy and uneasy. He really should have thought about this.</p><p>At least there was no sign of Dean, he reflected when the car pulled up next to the house. Mitchell woke when George switched off the engine. ‘We there?’</p><p>‘We’re home,’ George confirmed. ‘Can you walk?’</p><p>Mitchell said yes, but that turned out to be a lie. He managed to get out of the car by himself, then collapsed after one step. Sam had more experience than he wanted with people who went down, so his reflexes kicked in. He caught Mitchell just before he collided with the asphalt before he even realised that he was helping a vampire to his feet. Dean would never let him hear the end of this.</p><p>‘Wha…?’ George began, indignantly.</p><p>Mitchell waved one hand feebly in his general direction to shut him up. ‘You get the door,’ he said. ‘The hunter can help me in.’ He grinned equally feebly in Sam’s direction. ‘Sorry, didn’t catch your name.’</p><p>He hadn’t given it. ‘Sam Winchester,’ he said. Dean would have something to say about giving his real name to potential monsters as well, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.</p><p>Mitchell nodded. ‘Pleasure to meet you.’</p><p>Was it? Sam wasn’t sure yet. George wasn’t sure yet either. He kept fumbling with the key, hopping from one foot to the other as though he was deciding to turn his back on Sam or not. Mitchell made the decision for him. He held out a hand to Sam. Instinct kicked in. He took the hand and helped Mitchell to his feet, then wrapped an arm around him to keep him that way. The guy was unnaturally cold, so he shivered, something which Mitchell pretended not to notice.</p><p>‘I’ve got him,’ he assured George, trying to make this sound as unthreatening as he possibly could.</p><p>George said nothing. He walked ahead – but not too far – and unlocked the door.</p><p>There were voices inside.</p><p>And one of them was Dean’s. The sound was too faint to make out the words, but Sam would know that sound and cadence anywhere. Damn it. Trust Dean to strike out on his own. Having said that, the conversation seemed to be friendly enough.</p><p>‘Who the hell are you?’ George demanded right on cue.</p><p>Sam helped Mitchell over the threshold and closed the door behind him before he followed George’s gaze towards the kitchen. The sight that met his eyes effectively rendered him speechless for the next couple of seconds. Dean in a kitchen of any sort was a rare enough sight, but doing the dishes? Next to him stood a young woman, helping him. Or was he helping her? She behaved as if this was her house anyway. Hold on, she was the ghost?</p><p>Dean turned around, caught sight of Sam and grinned. ‘Hiya, Sammy.’</p><p>Sometimes… ‘Dude, what are you doing?’ So much for staying at the bed and breakfast.</p><p>‘Doing the dishes. Watch and learn, Sammy,’ his brother retorted.</p><p>‘Oh, so this is Sam?’ the young woman asked. She waited until Dean nodded in confirmation before she moved and then she was right before him, holding out her hand. ‘I’m Annie. Nice to meet you.’</p><p>She was definitely the ghost then. Still slightly bemused by this turn of events, he shook the hand. It wasn’t quite corporeal, but it was a very close thing. ‘Sam,’ he returned the courtesy. ‘Likewise?’</p><p>What the hell was going on here?</p><p>George echoed that sentiment, at the top of his voice.</p><p>‘Dean and Sam are going to help us with the vampires,’ Annie announced as though it had all been decided already.</p><p>Some of his astonishment must have shown, because Dean was quick to put in his two cents. ‘There’s definitely a case here, man. A group of vamps running rampant, from the sound of things. Leader’s called… Harry?’</p><p>‘Herrick,’ Mitchell corrected.</p><p>Dean didn’t miss a beat. ‘That’s him. There’s a case here, I say we do it.’</p><p>He had more or less made up his mind about that anyway, but he was a little surprised to see that Dean had apparently made friends with the ghost. Actually, she seemed pretty keen to befriend him as well, judging by the way she smiled at him as if he was about to solve all her problems.</p><p>Her focus shifted from Sam to Mitchell. ‘Oh, Mitchell! You should sit down. Do you want tea?’</p><p>A tired smile crossed Mitchell’s face. ‘Love to. Cheers, Annie.’</p><p>George looked like he had a thing or two to say, but then changed his mind. ‘Well, I did ask you to tea.’ He waved his finger in the absence of a mop. ‘I do want an explanation.’</p><p>‘So would I,’ Dean remarked.</p><p>This, Sam thought, was definitely not the day he thought he was going to have.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next time: the hunters are coming to tea. Plans are made.</p><p>Thank you very much for reading. Reviews would be very welcome.</p><p>Until Monday!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The Hunters Are Coming to Tea</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>Dean re-evaluated, because from what he could see the Mitchell dude could barely stand. Sam was practically wearing him. And George – the werewolf, he guessed – was more fussy college professor than raging monster. Well, that was what werewolves were like. They were perfectly normal most of the time.</p><p>George took normal to the next level.</p><p>He fussed over Mitchell a bit, then sent suspicious glances at Sam and Dean. It’d be nice if he had a moment to tell Sam what was up, but the chances of having a quick chat with George keeping such a close eye on them were slim to none. It’d have to wait until they were back in the bed and breakfast.</p><p>‘So,’ George said when Annie had given them all tea. Dean noted with interest that she had given herself a cup as well, cradled between her hands as if it was a piece of priceless treasure. ‘Who are you?’</p><p>Sam hastened to reply. ‘We are hunters. Dean here is the brother I mentioned.’</p><p>‘They hunt monsters,’ Annie said.</p><p>‘I know,’ Mitchell said. Dean had seen corpses with better colouring. Hell, he had seen better colouring on vampires who’d been turned into corpses. Whatever Herrick had done to him had done a number on him. From what he had seen, and the very little Sam had been able to tell him, this was another breed of vampire. Sam was reasonably sure that stakes would work on them. Mitchell was the evidence of that.</p><p>‘But not us,’ George spoke up, leaving everyone to wonder if this was a statement, a warning or a threat. Perhaps a little bit of all three.</p><p>‘Not you,’ Sam hastened to agree. ‘Look, I told you, we don’t hunt…’</p><p>‘Monsters,’ Dean supplied, although he was reasonably sure that this was the word Sam was trying to avoid in the first place.</p><p>Sam rewarded him with a bitchface, but carried on as if he hadn’t been interrupted at all: ‘… if they don’t hurt anybody. It doesn’t look like you’re hurting people, so we’ll leave you alone.’</p><p>That had taken surprisingly little effort. Not that Dean was about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Besides, he had bigger fish to fry. ‘We can help you with your little vampire problem,’ he said. ‘We deal with situations like this all the time.’</p><p>Unfortunately.</p><p>George crossed his arms. ‘Your brother had never seen someone like Mitchell before,’ he pointed out. ‘So you don’t deal with situations like this “all the time”.’ He made the air quotations in case his scepticism wasn’t abundantly clear already.</p><p>‘Perhaps not,’ Dean said. ‘But you can’t manage it on your own either. Or do you want to charge in swinging chairs again? ‘Cause I’d want to see that, especially when you get your ass handed to you.’</p><p>That shut him up.</p><p>Sam went for the softer approach. ‘Listen, we can help you if you let us.’ These three didn’t really need to let them do anything. They’d do it anyway, but it’d take up more time on research and he had a feeling they did not have much of that. There was a hunt here and innocent people were getting hurt. This was what they did. ‘I know you have no reason to trust us, but we have hunted monsters all our lives. We can fight. We face the unknown all the time and we always work it out. We’ll work it out this time as well.’</p><p>He was busy convincing George, but Dean suspected that he would cave soon enough. It was Mitchell they needed to convince here. He had history with these vamps. True, it seemed as though it had all ended bloody, but that did not mean he was happy for his former friends to be killed.</p><p>Mitchell looked up and locked eyes with him. For a moment it was as if he was looking into a mirror, because he knew that look. It was a weary look, the one he saw when he looked into a mirror, because he was so damn tired and he didn’t really see a way forward and looking at the past only made it hurt worse.</p><p>‘You’ll kill them.’ It was not a question.</p><p>It stopped the endless tug-of-war between Sam and George dead in its tracks. Annie, who hadn’t said much either, looked at Dean. So did everyone else.</p><p>‘They are killing people.’</p><p>Mitchell didn’t flinch or look away. ‘They are recruiting people.’</p><p>It took perhaps half a second for Dean to understand that when he said recruiting he meant turning people into vampires. ‘You make it sound like a war.’ He made an attempt at light-heartedness.</p><p>It died almost immediately. ‘It <em>is</em> a war. They aren’t recruiting just anybody. Do you see?’</p><p>Dean thought he did.</p><p>Mitchell explained anyway: ‘It’s a takeover. The entire city will be under their control unless we stop it. Herrick is with the police. Then there’s someone from the council. And on it goes. They use the hospital as recruiting grounds. Someone comes in mortally ill, Herrick makes them an offer…’ He still didn’t look away.</p><p>Now he saw.</p><p>‘An offer they can’t refuse,’ Sam understood.</p><p>It was far more advanced than anything any of the vamps Dean had ever met had ever come up with. Hell, even hell could learn something from this. ‘With an added blood addiction,’ Dean remarked in disgust. ‘Bet you anything he doesn’t mention that in the sales pitch.’</p><p>‘Some think that’s worth it if they don’t have to die.’</p><p>Dean wondered if Mitchell spoke from experience here, but that would have to wait. It was not any of his business anyway.</p><p>‘They take the bodies to the funeral parlour, and there they disappear.’ Mitchell sounded detached. ‘They feed them on homeless people, the people no one’ll miss.’</p><p>‘Fed.’</p><p>All heads turned to look at Annie. She sat comfortably on the couch, mug cradled between her hands, but the tone of voice was serious enough for all of them to take note.</p><p>‘Fed?’ Dean asked, since apparently no one else was going to.</p><p>‘Fed,’ she confirmed. Four pairs of eyes wordlessly expressed a request to elaborate on that, so she did: ‘I went there and I… poltergeisted… Is that a word?’</p><p>Dean shrugged. ‘Why not?’</p><p>‘So I poltergeisted and scared the vampires and set their victims free. Then I came home and Dean was here, so…’ She trailed off, staring at her tea with singular purpose.</p><p>It was silent for a minute while everyone let that sink in. Dean re-evaluated her scary status in the light of this new information.</p><p>Breaking the silence was once again up to him, because Sam had retreated into his big nerd brain to do whatever nerds did when they stumbled across new information, Mitchell had frozen and George had lost control over his jaw. ‘So, at least they don’t have any victims now.’ That was good news. It meant that he didn’t have to worry about civilians getting in the way while he dealt with the vamps. It meant he could just go in all guns blazing without worrying that he was accidentally killing the wrong people. ‘You said they live in the funeral parlour?’ Talk about conforming to stereotypes. These vamps watched way too many movies. By now he was wondering if they’d talk with a funny accent as well. No wonder Mitchell apparently wanted nothing to do with them. ‘Do they…?’</p><p>‘Dude, don’t,’ Sam said, clearly remembering that weird case with the shapeshifter not so long ago and correctly anticipating his brother’s imminent imitation of the weird Dracula accent.</p><p>Dean shrugged and grinned.</p><p>‘So,’ said George. He clearly recovered, if the slightly judgemental crossing his arms over his chest and the prissy tone were anything to go by. ‘Do you have an actual plan or not?’</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Of course Dean had a plan. Sam had plans of his own and he liked to think that they were nowhere near as suicidal and reckless as what his brother generally came up with. Mitchell had been surprisingly forthcoming with information, so at least they had something tangible to go on, which Sam liked a whole lot better than going in all guns blazing with absolutely no clue what he might find once he was in.</p><p>‘I wonder if these vamps are good with fire,’ Dean mused over dinner.</p><p>Annie had wasted no time in inviting both of them and, lacking any urgent places to be, Dean had accepted before Sam could make the suggestion that Dean and he both went back to the bed and breakfast. He would have liked that better, even if only so that he could talk to his brother without the all the supernaturals listening in. He would have preferred brainstorming without an audience.</p><p>‘Never tried it,’ Mitchell shrugged. He helped himself to another bit of shepherd’s pie, because apparently these vampires could eat normal food. Given that this was his second helping, it seemed safe to assume that he could actually digest it.</p><p>‘And you’re not trying it on Mitchell,’ George butted in before either Dean could suggest it or Mitchell could offer himself up as a guinea pig.</p><p>‘Didn’t plan to,’ Dean said, mouth full. ‘Hm, this is really good,’ he added to Annie, who probably would have blushed at the praise if she had still been alive. They ate barely any home-cooked meals. Dean clearly enjoyed the experience.</p><p>‘I like to cook,’ Annie offered, another cup of tea in her hands, even though she could not drink it. She looked wistfully at the plates. ‘I miss food.’</p><p>‘Yeah? What’d you eat, if you could?’</p><p>What had happened to <em>what’s dead should stay dead</em>? Dean was perfectly capable of making exceptions for monsters who didn’t behave like monsters, but this would be the first time that he struck up a friendship with anything supernatural. It looked effortless too. From what Sam could tell, his brother’s guard was down almost entirely.</p><p>Sam’s wasn’t. Yeah, these three seemed normal, but he hadn’t forgotten the less than savoury details that Dean had seemingly discarded. Twenty-four hours ago they had put the fear of God into Owen. Yes, the man deserved it, but still. Then there was Annie’s quite off-handed mention of rescuing the vamps’ victims that belied the gentleness she’d shown here. He hadn’t forgotten either that George had been quite okay with the use of violence when they first met. The dude was stronger than he looked. And there was something about the rapid way in which Mitchell recovered that didn’t quite sit right with him. It probably didn’t help that he was so tight-lipped about it.</p><p>Hadn’t he been drinking blood at some point during his life? How long had he been off the habit? If he was really off it at all, Sam added privately. He might as well be lying to save his own skin. After all, Mitchell knew what Sam did. He had every reason to lie.</p><p>On the other side of the table Annie recounted her love of chocolate, fresh fruit and vegetables and all things baked goods. ‘And tea, of course,’ she added, holding up her mug in evidence. ‘It’s gone cold.’</p><p>‘Here, have mine,’ Dean suggested with the kind of winning smile that very few women could ever resist.</p><p>‘Sure?’</p><p>‘Sure.’</p><p>‘So, fire?’ George asked, to get the conversation back on track.</p><p>‘Possibly,’ Sam said. It seemed wisest to take over before Dean could have any more bright ideas. Yes, they had a flamethrower, but it was fortunately in the Impala’s trunk. Besides, it might be wiser to go for something just a little less destructive. There was still the rest of the town to consider. ‘But we know that stakes will work and I’m pretty sure beheadings would do the trick as well.’</p><p>‘Even if they don’t, it might buy us the time to stake them through the heart.’ Dean munched and talked at the same time. George, on the other side of the table, was the unwilling recipient of several half-chewed chunks of shepherd’s pie. ‘How many vamps are there?’ He directed this query at Mitchell.</p><p>‘Not sure exactly.’ He smiled apologetically. ‘I’ve left the fold. Thirty at least. Might be more.’</p><p>That was a lot of them, especially for the two of them.</p><p>‘I want to help,’ Annie announced.</p><p>Sam opened his mouth to protest, then closed it again when he thought better of it. She had saved the victims. And even if she wasn’t good at fighting, even vampires could not kill a person twice. She was already dead.</p><p>‘Me too,’ said George.</p><p>‘No offence, dude, but you look as if my grandma could push you over.’ Dean had never been one for tact.</p><p>George crossed his arms over his chest in clear defiance. ‘I’m stronger than I look, especially this close to the full moon.’</p><p>‘Which is?’</p><p>‘Tomorrow.’</p><p>‘We’re not doing this tomorrow.’</p><p>Sam breathed a sigh of relief. Werewolves were notably unpredictable on a full moon. They simply couldn’t be trusted to know their friends from their enemies. Apparently werewolves at least were not so different here from the ones they had in the States. He remembered that George had mentioned that it – meaning the wolf – was in charge then.</p><p>George made a jumpy movement. ‘What? <em>No</em>, of course not! I’m not bringing… <em>it</em>. It would tear you all apart!’ He looked horrified just thinking about it.</p><p>‘Not if the one who’s with you is already dead.’ Dean meanwhile had a change of heart.</p><p>‘Dean, no.’</p><p>‘Just thinking.’</p><p>Well, this thought had almost sent George straight into cardiac arrest. He didn’t have much colour to begin with, but what little remained of it had just completely drained away. Mitchell and Annie were comfortable – to some extent – with what they were, but not George. Out of the three of them he was perhaps the most human or, perhaps better phrased, the least unhuman.</p><p>‘Whatever you do, you’ll need to get Herrick away from the rest.’ Mitchell had been suspiciously quiet, but he had apparently used the time to actually get some thinking done. ‘They’re leaderless without him. He’s the one that keeps them together. The others are too disorganised, too wrapped up in their addiction. The only one who might have had a chance of keeping them in line was Seth and well, he’s dead.’</p><p>‘Herrick, that’s the one who stabbed you, right?’ Dean checked.</p><p>Mitchell grinned a grin that involved far too many teeth. ‘I’ll be bait.’</p><p>That predictably led to a storm of protest from his two housemates that only abated when Mitchell told them to shut up and listen for a moment, because he had a plan.</p><p>It was even worse than Dean’s idea.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next time: there’s a break-in. Of sorts.<br/>Thank you for reading. Reviews would be much appreciated.<br/>Until Friday!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Home Invasion of the Supernatural Kind</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>‘I don’t like it, man,’ Sam bitched for the twenty-second time in two hours. Dean had been keeping count. His current hypothesis was that all younger brothers left the womb having mastered the whiny tone. It hadn’t been disproven yet.</p><p>All things considered it was the best option to move from the bed and breakfast into the pink house, so after dinner Sam had gone to fetch their stuff, just in case Herrick decided to come back to have another go at Mitchell.</p><p>The supernaturals had gone to bed. Well, George and Mitchell had gone to bed. What Annie got up to during the night was anyone’s guess. He wondered if she sat all night in the chair in the room without a bed. This left the Winchesters to camp out in the living room, although right now neither of them was sleeping.</p><p>They were preparing. Well, one of them was.</p><p>‘Don’t see you coming up with a better plan,’ Dean pointed out. Thirty-odd vampires was too much even for them, even with the element of surprise. Not for the first time he thought longing thoughts of the flamethrower in the trunk of the Impala. ‘And Mitchell offered.’</p><p>Sam put on his most prominent bitchface. ‘Why doesn’t it surprise me that you don’t mind that?’</p><p>He shouldn’t rise to the bait. ‘What?’ he demanded. ‘He’s helping.’ Which was more than could be said for Sam at this stage of the game. ‘Unlike you.’ He held up the stake he was sharpening in evidence.</p><p>‘It’s exactly the same sort of stupid, reckless thing that you would do,’ Sam growled, throwing up his empty hands into the air. ‘Offering himself up for his friends. Don’t tell me that doesn’t sound familiar. Did you know that that’s how he became a vamp in the first place? Because he traded his life for that of his friends? He made a <em>deal</em>.’</p><p>Dean hadn’t known in fact, but it rang uncomfortably familiar. Which he was definitely not going to say. ‘He’ll have you to watch his back.’</p><p>Sam made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat that put Dean more in mind of a werewolf than the actual one upstairs. ‘He’s got no sense of self-preservation. Not that you’d know anything about that.’</p><p>Ah. This again. ‘Pot calling the kettle black, Sammy.’ He very purposefully didn’t look at Sam’s face. ‘How many deals did you try to make while I was downstairs?’</p><p>The answer was conspicuous by its absence.</p><p>‘That’s what I thought,’ Dean nodded. He didn’t want to rub his brother’s nose in it, but he did suspect that Sam’s mind was not entirely on the job in hand. Or, more likely given the size of Sam’s brain, was as much on the job as it was on related matters that weren’t relevant right now. ‘Am I going to be sharpening these stakes alone all night or are you going to help?’</p><p>Sam reluctantly reached for another stick and set to it with a will. With added bitchface, just to drive the message home. All younger brothers came into the world having perfected that as well.</p><p>Having said that, Dean didn’t like this much either. Herrick was a nasty piece of work by all accounts. Sam was a good hunter and he’d have Mitchell there to help, but Mitchell was still recovering and Herrick would definitely suspect a trap at least if he was as intelligent as Mitchell claimed.</p><p>And that was the easy job. Dean was going after the rest of the vamps with a ghost and a werewolf. On a full moon. Someone explain to him why this was a good idea again? Perhaps Mitchell had drugged them, because both George and Dean had agreed to this at some point.</p><p>There <em>must</em> be drugs involved.</p><p>
  <em>Cas, if you’ve finally got your ears on, we could definitely use a little help here.</em>
</p><p>The silence of the night shattered before he had finished the thought. Someone upstairs – Dean’s money was on Annie, given the high pitch – was screaming as though they were having the living daylights scared out of them.</p><p>Dean was a hunter. He had instincts. Most people would run away when they heard someone screaming like that. He would run to. It was just as well that he had a stake already in his hand and his gun still tucked in the waistband of his jeans. He took the stairs two at a time. The screaming was getting louder all the time.</p><p>He ran into Mitchell on the landing. His hair stood out in all directions and this was the first time that Dean encountered a vamp who could be best described as bleary-eyed, but he managed to find a cricket bat somewhere. What was it with these supernatural Brits and their household implements doubling as weapons? They were scary and deadly enough without them.</p><p>It was almost as if they had tricked themselves into thinking they were human.</p><p>‘That’s George,’ Mitchell said, helpfully pointing out the right door.</p><p>Dean did not need telling twice. He broke down the door with Sam and Mitchell at his heels. Mitchell hit the lights.</p><p>Well, this was unexpected.</p><p>George stopped screaming when the lights came on. It was evidently his room, given the fact that he was in the bed. He’d pulled the covers up to his chin, although that wasn’t going to do him much good against the weapon Cas held in his hand. Cas himself stood next to the bed, looking bewildered, but threatening George with his sword all the same. And then there was Annie, who tried to look threatening with a coat hanger and a slipper, shooing at Cas, who took no notice of her.</p><p>Cas turned around when he became aware of the commotion at the door. ‘Hello, Dean.’</p><p>‘Cas.’ He took in the scene before him. ‘What are you doing here?’</p><p>Cas tilted his head in a quizzical manner. ‘You called for me.’</p><p>‘Yes, yesterday.’ And just now, too, he remembered. ‘We’ve talked about this. You can’t just appear in people’s houses. Just knock on the front door.’</p><p>‘You know him?’ Mitchell demanded. The tone implied that association with the guy who broke into his house in the middle of the night and threatened his housemate did not raise Dean in his esteem in the slightest.</p><p>Apparently introductions were up to him. ‘Mitchell, Annie, George, this is Castiel. He’s an angel. Cas, these are… well, you’ve heard me say their names. They’re helping with a case. Just put down the blade, will you?’</p><p>‘Angel?’ Annie squeaked. ‘I threatened an <em>angel</em>?’</p><p>‘The angel threatens <em>me</em>,’ George pointed out indignantly. ‘Can you put that thing down, please?’</p><p>‘Wait, angels are real?’ Mitchell demanded. ‘Actual angels?’</p><p>‘Seeing as how I’m currently threatened by one, I’d say so,’ George chipped in, clearly unhappy that not enough attention was paid to his plight.</p><p>‘He is an abomination,’ Castiel said, looking from one to the other.</p><p>And making himself no friends in the process; the collective indignation from the three housemates should have blown him over.</p><p>‘And he’s not hurting anyone, Cas.’ If his father could see him now, he’d have Opinions. But here he was, defending a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf. Funny how life turned out sometimes. ‘Put the blade down, please.’</p><p>Castiel clearly hesitated. He looked down at George, who stared back angrily. Then he turned to Annie, who was still gripping the coat hanger and slipper. At the same time she was also plainly very curious. The girl really had no sense of self-preservation. At last he looked at Mitchell, who was not as forgiving as his housemates. He bared his fangs and let his eyes turn black, cricket bat forgotten. It only served to make Cas shift his attention and the blade from the werewolf to the vampire.</p><p>Dean stepped between them. ‘They’re helping, Cas.’ He looked over his shoulder at Mitchell, who didn’t look so well after that threatening display. ‘And you should sit down.’</p><p>Mitchell ignored him. So did Cas.</p><p>‘Helping?’ Cas echoed. ‘But they are…’</p><p>‘If you say abominations again, then so help me…’ George started off, before he realised that maybe invoking God was not the best option here. He hesitated for a moment, then skipped over it altogether: ‘I will bite you,’ he ended. ‘On a full moon.’</p><p>Annie’s eyes widened comically. ‘You threatened an angel!’</p><p>‘He threatened me first!’</p><p>Dean really wasn’t paid anything like enough to deal with this sort of shit. Worse, he wasn’t paid for this at all. But the supernaturals clearly weren’t helping their case and Sam wasn’t doing anything at all. Meanwhile Cas was still deliberating over who to stab first and the whole display was presided over by the freaky gnomes on the wallpaper, who, especially in this light, managed to be the most scary thing in this far too tiny room.</p><p>So once again it was up to him. ‘Why don’t you just put the sword down and we’ll move to the living room to explain?’ he suggested. ‘Cause I’m getting claustrophobia just standing here.’ This room had not been designed to fit six adults, especially not when one of the adults was Sam.</p><p>Annie visibly perked up. ‘I’ll make the tea.’</p><hr/><p> </p><p>It seemed increasingly unlikely that he was going to get any sleep tonight, Sam reflected when Annie pushed a mug of steaming tea into his hands. This meant she had her back to Dean, who tipped his tea into an unidentified houseplant.</p><p>Mitchell, George and Annie squashed together on the sofa, Dean monopolised an old armchair and Sam had dragged a kitchen chair into the living room, but Castiel elected to stand. He had, after far too much urging from Dean’s side, put the blade away, but he kept shooting the same sort of disgusted looks at the housemates that he used to bestow on Sam.</p><p>Not a good sign.</p><p>For what it was worth, the housemates were not very impressed with Castiel either.</p><p>Annie hadn’t offered him any tea.</p><p>‘I have come to take you back,’ Castiel announced before anyone else could get a word in. ‘You have done well here.’</p><p>‘Can’t,’ Dean said. Sam suspected that the casual carelessness with which he sprawled over the chair was a carefully constructed image aimed at defusing the situation as soon as possible. People always underestimated Dean. Sam was commonly known as the smart one. More fool them. ‘We’ve got a case here.’</p><p>‘You…’</p><p>That was as far as he was allowed to get. ‘Vampires,’ Dean announced. ‘Running around, killing and turning people.’</p><p>Castiel turned to look at Mitchell.</p><p>‘Not Mitchell,’ Dean said. ‘He’s clean.’</p><p>‘That’s…’</p><p>‘Unusual, yeah, I know. Didn’t go down too well with his former friends either.’</p><p>‘No good deed goes unpunished,’ George muttered darkly.</p><p>‘But hey, if you’re not too busy, you could stay and help,’ Dean suggested cheerfully. ‘You could even the odds a little. Ten to one at the last count.’</p><p>Castiel was temporarily lost for words. Sam didn’t agree with him often, but at least they agreed on the fact that Dean was a reckless idiot who wouldn’t know self-preservation if it danced naked in front of him.</p><p>Now that he had thought about it, it really didn’t come as a surprise anymore that he liked these three. They were outcasts, trying to have a go at normalcy even when they themselves could never be normal ever again. Besides, anyone with the sort of noble suicidal notions Mitchell entertained was bound to appeal to Dean. And it wasn’t as if Dean was capable of not being nice to a beautiful woman. Even if she happened to be dead.</p><p>‘You have important work to do.’ Castiel stood perfectly still, back ramrod straight.</p><p>‘I have a job to do,’ Dean said. ‘Right here. I’m not your plaything, Cas. I’m a hunter and right now I need to hunt some vamps. In Bristol. The way I see it, you can either get off your feathery ass and help or you can fly off and do whatever it is you do when you’re not answering prayers.’</p><p>‘Isn’t that blasphemy?’ Annie whispered to Mitchell, who shrugged in response.</p><p>‘He’s used to it,’ Dean assured her. ‘Don’t worry, Annie, we’ll finish the job and then,’ he continued, although now he turned to Castiel, ‘we’re going to leave them here in peace.’ It was very definitely not a suggestion. ‘You harm them and then I’m done doing your dirty work. We clear on that?’</p><p>‘You want me to… help?’</p><p>‘We could use another pair.’ Because of course Dean was never going to actually ask for help.</p><p>The human-angel communication clearly wasn’t yet functioning at its best. ‘Of what?’</p><p>‘What do you mean: of what?’</p><p>‘You could use another pair,’ Castiel said, visibly getting more frustrated.</p><p>‘Of balls,’ muttered Mitchell under his breath.</p><p>Annie broke out in giggles.</p><p>George looked horrified.</p><p>‘Of hands,’ Dean replied, a little louder, pretending he hadn’t heard Mitchell at all. ‘Learn English, Cas.’</p><p>‘I speak many languages.’</p><p>‘Imperfectly.’</p><p>‘So,’ Sam said before this night could get any stranger than it already was. ‘Do you think you could stay and help? Please?’ Dean may be fine bossing around an actual angel, but Sam was not. He had slightly more sense. And quite possibly heaps more survival instinct. ‘We’re outnumbered and probably outgunned.’</p><p>‘We can’t help you if we’re dead,’ Dean pointed out, undoing all of Sam’s hard work.</p><p>Annie stood up. ‘Would you?’ she asked, ‘like a cup of tea?’</p><p>Castiel blinked at her. ‘Tea?’ he repeated uncertainly.</p><p>‘Yes, tea,’ she said. ‘Do you?’</p><p>The reply was neither a yes or a no. ‘I don’t eat or drink.’</p><p>‘Neither do I,’ Annie said sunnily. ‘But I can hold it and sniff it.’</p><p>‘Which makes it sound far freakier than it actually is,’ Mitchell chipped in. ‘Just accept one, mate. You don’t have to drink it.’</p><p>‘Mate?’ George echoed. ‘You just called an actual angel “mate”?’</p><p>Mitchell shrugged. ‘I’m a vampire, George. It’s not like his opinion of me could be any less.’ He really was a little too laid back about his supernatural status. Something about it rubbed Sam the wrong way. There was something off about it, something he could not quite put his finger on.</p><p>Clearly George thought the same, if for entirely different reasons. ‘Well, don’t!’ he counselled emphatically, flapping his hands about. ‘He might… smite you or something!’</p><p>‘He won’t smite you,’ Annie said confidently. ‘He’s a friend of Dean’s and he’s our friend too.’ She turned to Castiel for confirmation. ‘You are his friend, right?’</p><p>Castiel pondered this for a moment. ‘We do share a profound bond,’ he replied at last, which did absolutely nothing to stop Mitchell from breaking out into laughter.</p><p>Dean audibly groaned.</p><p>Annie patted Castiel on the arm. ‘You really have a lot to learn about human interaction, don’t you?’</p><p>‘I am not human.’ The confusion doubled.</p><p>‘Neither are we,’ Annie pointed out. ‘But we try to be. Tea?’</p><p>Sam would have paid a million dollars just to find out what was going on in Castiel’s head just then. Something was happening. He looked Annie in the eye the way he usually did; the unwavering stare that sent most people running for the hills. Annie just stood still and let him get on with it. Then Castiel looked at the vampire and werewolf on the sofa intently for at least a minute.</p><p>In the end he decided: ‘Yes, I would very much like a cup of tea.’</p><p>
  <em>Well, I never.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next time: time to meet the local vampires.<br/>Thank you very much for reading. Reviews would be very much appreciated.<br/>Until Monday!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Something in the Blood</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>By the time George and Dean left the house at nine o’clock that morning, Dean was feeling infinitely more optimistic about this whole plan. He wasn’t going to say anything in front of the others, but he’d had some doubts about the first version of the plan. Yeah, it was the best that they could get under the circumstances, but having Cas to help out might turn the odds a little more in their favour.</p><p>George however was on the opposite trajectory. He was nervous and jittery and, on one occasion, literally jumping at shadows.</p><p>‘You’re not going to throw up on me, are you?’ Dean asked, just to be on the safe side.</p><p>George glared at him. ‘No.’</p><p>‘Good.’</p><p>Honestly, Dean didn’t know what to make of him. From what he’d seen he was at least as intelligent as Sam, but the whole supernatural aspect of his life clearly hadn’t stopped freaking him out yet.</p><p>‘So, what’s the problem? Afraid of the vampires?’</p><p>George jumped and looked over his shoulder. ‘Don’t say it so loudly!’ he complained, quite loudly himself. ‘People might hear!’</p><p>Dean obligingly lowered his voice. ‘Afraid of them?’</p><p>‘So would you be if they’d cornered you and beat you up because you’re…’ The last word was unintelligible, but Dean got the gist.</p><p>‘You survived.’</p><p>‘Because Mitchell interfered.’ A quick smile. ‘That’s how we met.’ He stood still in the middle of the road and crossed his arms over his chest. The intended effect was mostly undone by the glasses and the gigantic ears. ‘He’s <em>not </em>like the others. He’s fighting it every day. People like your… friend aren’t helping.’</p><p>Dean wouldn’t go as far as to call Cas a friend. ‘More Annie’s friend,’ he pointed out. The two of them had inexplicably bonded over the tea that neither of them could drink; Annie because she was a ghost and Cas because he claimed it tasted of molecules. Whatever that meant. ‘Cas… pulled me out of a bad situation and now he thinks he owns me.’</p><p>‘Like Herrick thought he owns Mitchell?’</p><p>Dean considered the evidence and found the situations weren’t so different. ‘Without the blood lust and the murder attempts.’</p><p>‘And the evil schemes?’</p><p>‘Not sure yet.’ There was too much he didn’t know. ‘But we did him a good turn, so now he can help us. He’s… not a bad sort. He’s just got his loyalties mixed up.’ And so long as Castiel’s loyalty was to people Dean didn’t know and trust, he couldn’t trust Cas. It was as simple as that.</p><p>George considered that and finally answered the question Dean started off with: ‘I’m not afraid of the vampires,’ he said. ‘Not really. I think they’ll be more afraid of… <em>it</em>.’ He looked down at the pavement. ‘I don’t like to let… <em>it</em> out.’</p><p>‘You’ve never killed before?’</p><p>George eyes widened in shock. ‘What? No! Why would I?’</p><p>‘You’re not in control on a full moon,’ Dean pointed out.</p><p>George stared at the ground with singular intent. ‘It killed a few rabbits two months ago. And I think it got into someone’s chicken coop last month.’</p><p>He didn’t think of himself as the wolf. There was George and there was the wolf and in George’s mind at least they were two separate entities. That was always the crappy thing with werewolves. This one did seem to have it under control, more or less, perhaps because he was so disgusted by what he was.</p><p>‘So, if you won’t remember what you did while you were furry, tonight won’t be a problem then.’</p><p>He let George ponder that as they walked to the funeral parlour. It wasn’t very far away, but far away enough for the houses to become more dilapidated as they went. This wasn’t a great neighbourhood to be after dark, Dean suspected, and that was even without calculating in the vampires just down the road.</p><p>No one was hanging around the entrance, but the lights inside were on. Whatever else these vamps were, they were clearly not nocturnal. Mitchell needed to sleep, but that could be because he was still recovering. No doubt Sam would be all over these differences like a rash. He was fine with leaving that aspect of the job mostly to him.</p><p>‘There’s another exit around the back,’ George said.</p><p>Dean had in fact heard this before last night, as they were planning, but he nodded again. ‘Only one?’</p><p>‘Mitchell says so.’</p><p>Well, that should make his job easier. He could block the one at the front once George was in and got his fur on and then Cas and Annie could deal with the one around the back until he got there.</p><p>They didn’t loiter, but they walked slowly. There was big garbage container two doors down that Dean suspected could make a good impromptu obstacle. It was on wheels, but there was a brake on them that he could easily turn off and on. The street didn’t offer much else in the way of potential blockades.</p><p>‘Just make sure it can’t get out,’ George muttered under his breath.</p><p>‘It’s my job.’ Either that or put an end to George on a slightly more permanent basis. Dean found he really didn’t want to go there after all. These three pink house inhabitants reminded him a bit of those vamps in the States who lived on animal blood. They weren’t hurting people, only cows. Mitchell wasn’t even hurting cows and George’s proclivity for wild life when dog-shaped was really not his problem.</p><p>‘Ready?’ he asked.</p><p>‘No,’ said George and he opened the front door.</p><p>It looked like a funeral parlour. It actually looked like a funeral parlour. The interior was designed to be calming, the walls painted a light shade of blue. There was a reception and everything. It was even manned.</p><p>‘Hello,’ George said. He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath and marched towards the reception desk.</p><p>The young – well young-looking – woman behind it, wrinkled her nose. ‘What do you want, dog? Shed hair all over the carpet?’</p><p>‘Clearly we’ve come to the right place.’</p><p>‘Only if you’re here to deliver lunch.’ Her eyes wandered over Dean from top to bottom and back again. Her eyes flashed black for a moment and she licked her lips. Dean had been sized up by many a woman, but the only wicked ways they intended to have with him involved a bed and a distinct lack of clothes.</p><p>This one looked at him like he was dinner.</p><p>‘I’m not on the menu, sweetheart,’ Dean drawled. ‘We’re here to deliver a message. Herrick around?’</p><p>‘What’s he got to do with the likes of you?’ She really wasn’t all that pretty when she sneered at him. ‘Herrick’s got many calls on his time.’</p><p>‘He’ll make time for us,’ George declared. He was a lot more assertive all of a sudden. ‘You can tell him we’ve got a message from Mitchell.’</p><p>She really didn’t like that very much. She wasn’t going anywhere at any rate.</p><p>‘Today, darling,’ Dean pressed, because he suspected that the endearments were driving her up the wall. ‘Because before you know it, there’s all sorts of nastiness and hey, Christo, you’ve got another dead vamp. I’m sure there’s plenty more where you came from to carry the message.’</p><p>She really, really didn’t like that. As soon as he said Christo her eyes turned black, she cowered and hissed. ‘Stop that!’ she growled at him.</p><p>‘As soon as you fetch Herrick for us,’ Dean said cheerfully.</p><p>‘Or what?’</p><p>He let the stake slide out of sleeve and into his hand. ‘Why don’t we find out together?’</p><p>She snarled at him and rose to her feet. ‘All right, all right,’ she said. ‘Just keep your dog on a leash. We don’t want that smell all over the building.’</p><p>‘Customer service gets worse every day,’ Dean said, because there was no such thing as a taunt too many. ‘Could I lodge a complaint with your manager?’</p><p>Strangely enough, she didn’t find that funny.</p><p>They were left to wait. Dean privately resolved to give her five minutes before he went to find Herrick for himself. Meanwhile he browsed through the leaflets on her desk, all of which were in some way related to the profession of undertaker. These vamps really didn’t stint on their cover.</p><p>‘Do you think they do actual funerals?’ he asked George.</p><p>George shrugged. ‘I don’t think the departed ever make it to the grave.’</p><p>‘Quite right,’ said a newcomer. ‘And that for a dog.’</p><p>Dean turned around and bestowed his falsest smile on him. ‘Herrick, I presume.’</p><p>He wasn’t that impressive at first sight: a little chubby, not too tall and on the whole fairly weak facial features under a haircut that looked dishevelled at best. But he had one of the nastiest smiles Dean had ever seen – which included the ones he’d witnessed downstairs, where smiles were nothing but nasty – and a greedy gleam in his eyes.</p><p>He’d feel right at home in hell.</p><p>‘We don’t see many Americans here in our fair city,’ he observed.</p><p>‘Wonder why.’</p><p>‘You seem to have me at a disadvantage. I knew Mitchell likes to have pets these days, but what are you?’</p><p>What was it with the British vamps and their petty insults? Must be something in the blood around here. ‘Hunter,’ he said. ‘The vamps in Bristol are out of control and it’s been noticed.’</p><p>Vamps of course were pale by nature, but Herrick definitely knew what a hunter was. ‘We don’t see many of those around.’</p><p>‘Well, if you had behaved you wouldn’t have seen me at all,’ Dean pointed out. ‘But here I am.’</p><p>‘So what brings a dog and a murderer to our doorstep this morning?’</p><p>Wow. What a hypocrite.</p><p>‘We bring a message from Mitchell,’ George said, ignoring the insults. ‘He wants to meet with you. Alone. To resolve the situation without further bloodshed.’</p><p>‘Or else…?’</p><p>Dean had a really good answer to that. ‘I’m going to need to call in a few of my hunter friends and deal with the situation my way.’ No need to tell him that they were going to do that anyway.</p><p>Herrick narrowed his eyes. ‘Why aren’t you doing that anyway? Your sort usually aren’t concerned with lives.’</p><p>‘What a coincidence,’ Dean said cheerfully. ‘Neither are you.’</p><p>‘So, why aren’t you doing that anyway?’ Herrick repeated the question.</p><p>Telling him that they wanted him out of the way so that the rest of the vamps would be leaderless when they were attacked was not something either Dean or George was going to tell him. ‘Not my jurisdiction,’ Dean pointed out. ‘I’m just here on vacation. But if this isn’t resolved to my satisfaction I’m going to take more of a professional interest. If you can deal with your own mess, I’m not going to meddle. I’m only going to deal with this if the killing doesn’t stop. Killing of actual people, that is. What you do to each other is none of my business.’</p><p>Strictly speaking that was true. Except he’d rather taken a shine to these three, which Herrick did not need to know.</p><p>‘So you are here…?’</p><p>‘As a neutral observer.’ Of the premises, mainly. No need to burden Herrick with that information either. ‘So, you can accept George’s offer or I’m going to step in.’</p><p>‘With all of your friends.’</p><p>‘With all of my friends.’</p><p>Herrick clearly wasn’t all that impressed. ‘And who are you?’</p><p>His first instinct was to not tell Herrick anything at all, but then he hesitated. For some reason monsters were sometimes familiar with the Winchester name. They’d made some ripples. And Herrick was well-connected. At the very least he wanted it to appear that way. It couldn’t hurt to try it.</p><p>He grinned. ‘Dean Winchester.’</p><p>Herrick swore.</p><p>Loudly.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Sam had spent many an awkward moment in his life, but this morning may rank somewhere in the top ten. Quite high in the top ten. Had someone told him that he would spend time sharpening stakes with an actual vampire, whilst the ghost and the angel bonded over tea they didn’t drink in the kitchen, he would have laughed.</p><p>And told them to sober up.</p><p>‘Tea?’ Mitchell offered, carrying two cups into the living room where Sam was in the process of sharpening stakes. ‘Annie’s made plenty.’</p><p>Tea really wasn’t that bad after you’d had enough of it. At least it was warm. ‘Sure.’ He cast a quick glance towards the kitchen, where the resident ghost was chatting to and with Castiel. The longer this went on, the chattier Castiel became.</p><p>Interesting.</p><p>‘Need a hand?’ Mitchell asked, indicating the unsharpened sticks to Sam’s left.</p><p>This took him by surprise. ‘You?’</p><p>Mitchell sat down next to him. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’ When Sam did not get it right away, he added: ‘In the trenches. We’d use whatever we had to hand. Guns and bayonets, but stakes and barbed wire too. Everything to keep the enemy out.’</p><p>Sam didn’t know what to say to that. He had a million questions, but for all he knew Mitchell did not want to talk about it. World War One had been horrific by all accounts.</p><p>So he asked about something else: ‘Don’t you mind? That we’ll kill them all?’</p><p>Mitchell pondered this for a moment. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said eventually. ‘But we have to. They’re… addicts. And they don’t want to go clean.’</p><p>‘You have.’</p><p>‘And I could still fall off the wagon.’ Mitchell didn’t look at him. On purpose, Sam suspected. He was sharpening a stake and had apparently no eye for anything else. ‘It’s not easy, for someone like me.’</p><p>‘Because of the blood lust?’</p><p>‘That’s only part of it.’ His hands stilled. ‘The blood, it’s like drugs. You get high on it. It’s the most amazing feeling in the world. There’s only the high. The rest of the world is… blurred. You don’t… You’re not as aware of what you’re actually doing.’ He took a deep breath, through his mouth. ‘When you go clean, it’s not just the addiction you’re fighting, but all the memories that come back to you, of the things you did. No one wants to remember. So much easier to fall off and forget.’</p><p>Some of it – not all of it, but some – sounded horribly familiar. His thoughts strayed to Ruby and how wonderful – and powerful! – it felt. He also remembered just how long ago it was that he’d seen her, that she had given him… His hands weren’t quite steady. The way he was now, he’d not be able to exorcise a demon with his mind. His senses were duller than they were a few days ago.</p><p>Mitchell wasn’t aware of any of this. ‘I’m not going to drink from you, even if you don’t smell as bad as yesterday. I’m… I’m in control.’</p><p>So vampires could smell it. Of course Mitchell didn’t know about demons and the properties of their blood. He couldn’t name what he actually smelled.</p><p>Sam found he was pretty keen to keep it that way. Besides, even the vampire could stay off the blood. If even a vampire could manage it, then why couldn’t he.</p><p>
  <em>Because it’s not an addiction. It’s a necessity.</em>
</p><p>He could imagine Dean’s response to that in some detail.</p><p>Having said that, some of wat Mitchell said rang a bell. It might even be an alarm bell. Sam didn’t think much about the people demons possessed, the people he accidentally killed when he didn’t get it right, when his mojo wasn’t strong enough. He didn’t think about the people whose blood he drank, demons or no demons.</p><p>He realised now that he hadn’t looked at any of their faces.</p><p>His hands shook a little more. He slipped and nicked himself with the knife.</p><p>Mitchell leaped to his feet. ‘I’ll get the first aid box,’ he said. ‘Annie, where’s the first aid kit?’</p><p>She appeared out of nowhere. ‘Under the kitchen sink,’ she replied. ‘Why…?’ Then she saw Sam’s hand and poltergeisted out of the room as quickly as she’d come. There was some noise in the kitchen and then she appeared again. ‘There we go.’</p><p>Mitchell took it from her. ‘Cheers, Annie.’ He opened the box and extended his hand. ‘Hand?’ When Sam hesitated – because giving a bleeding hand to any vampire, even one on the wagon, was somewhat contrary to a hunter’s instincts – Mitchell grinned and added: ‘World War One soldier, remember? I’ve done this before.’ And with wounds a lot more gruesome than a shallow cut too, Sam imagined.</p><p>He had a feeling Mitchell deliberately misinterpreted.</p><p>He held out his hand and the vampire set to work.</p><p>‘I don’t think I like the word,’ Annie declared, sitting down on Sam’s right. The air chilled considerably.</p><p>‘What word?’ Mitchell asked. He didn’t look up.</p><p>‘Poltergeisting,’ she clarified. ‘I mean, aren’t poltergeists nasty and mean?’</p><p>‘Very,’ Sam agreed. A poltergeist wasn’t what sprang to mind when he thought of Annie.</p><p>‘So, we’ll need another word,’ she said. ‘Cause if I’m going to stay here, I’m not going to be nasty and mean. I’ve got to think about the effect I want to have.’</p><p>Mitchell and Sam considered this.</p><p>‘Rent-a-ghost,’ Mitchell said at last. He looked up and grinned. ‘You’re not poltergeisting, you’re rent-a-ghosting.’</p><p>Annie let this sink in and then smiled widely. ‘I like that. Thanks, Mitchell.’</p><p>It was at this moment that the front door opened. George and Dean walked in and Dean at least was in high spirits: ‘We came, we saw, we scared the crap out of him.’</p><p>Mitchell’s eyebrows made a little involuntary jump. Sam suspected his own did the same. ‘Herrick was scared of <em>you</em>?’</p><p>‘We’re famous, Sammy,’ Dean announced. ‘Tonight, at ten, roof of the hospital. Bring refreshments.’</p><p>Mitchell took this with a little less exuberance than Dean brought it. He didn’t say anything.</p><p>The high of a successful mission only now wore off enough for Dean to notice the goings-on in the living room. ‘What happened here?’ The implication in the tone was that if any of the resident supernaturals had anything to do with this, there would be words.</p><p>‘Cut myself.’ The truth was a little more embarrassing. ‘Mitchell’s patching me up.’</p><p>The one upside of this self-inflicted wound was that it had focused his attention wonderfully on the present and less on the gnawing feeling in his stomach.</p><p>
  <em>I’m not an addict. What I do, I do because I must.</em>
</p><p>Because he wasn’t sure of Dean.</p><p>No, but really that too was just something he told himself. Yes, his brother was different after his return, but he was functioning. In fact, he was functioning rather well. For some reason he was doing even better here in Britain than he did in the States. If anything, he looked like he was almost enjoying himself.</p><p>Yes, he was tired and exhausted, but so was Sam. They were fighting a war, not just one battle, and there wasn’t an end in sight. But they could do this hunt and then somehow they’d manage the one after that.</p><p>For now at least, they were all right.</p><p>They wouldn’t be if Dean found out what Sam was really up to.</p><p>But if he didn’t get to Ruby in the next few days, Dean was bound to find out. It hadn’t been so bad, going days or even a few weeks between… top-ups. Even in his mind he’d like to avoid the word “fix” to refer to what he did with Ruby. It hadn’t been so easy recently, when he took in a little more and the powers of his mind developed accordingly. He needed more in order to achieve more and, more worryingly, he needed it more often.</p><p>The sooner they wrapped up this hunt, the better.</p><p>‘Rookie mistake, Sammy,’ Dean scolded. Now that he knew what had happened, he didn’t seem to mind Mitchell doing the bandaging. ‘Didn’t get your beauty sleep last night, did you?’</p><p>Sam bitchfaced him on principle.</p><p>‘You should sleep today,’ he carried on, seemingly oblivious. ‘Maybe you could share George’s room, so you girls can talk and squeal and braid each other’s hair and…’</p><p>George’s face coloured bright red. He too glared at Dean.</p><p>Dean only laughed. ‘Oh, look, the bitchface comes in stereo.’</p><p>One of these days, Sam was going to kill his brother.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next time: Herrick takes Dean’s instructions literal. Sam is not amused.<br/>Thank you very much for reading. Any reviews would be warmly welcomed.<br/>Until Friday!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Bring Your Own Refreshments</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>There were far more stakes in the living room than any vampire in his right mind should be comfortable with, but the only one in evidence was tucking one into the waistband of his jeans and another up his right sleeve for easy access. Annie took one too, but she carried it. ‘Can’t tuck it away,’ she explained to Dean, who knew that.</p><p>George took nothing.</p><p>‘You sure?’ Dean asked him.</p><p>George flapped his hands. ‘What am I going to do, hold it in my paws?’</p><p>Good point.</p><p>‘Ready then?’ They should get going.</p><p>George squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. ‘Almost.’</p><p>He took a plastic bag off the table. Then he reached underneath his shirt and came up with a necklace. A Star of David dangled on it.</p><p>Several strange things happened all at once. Mitchell was right next to George. He shouldn’t have been able to bear this. According to Sam he’d really not liked the “religious stuff” and neither had the receptionist at the funeral parlour. Dean half expected Mitchell to jump back and hiss, but he didn’t.</p><p>‘Could you…?’ George asked.</p><p>Mitchell held out his hand. ‘Sure.’</p><p>To the surprise of Sam and Dean both – and who knew what Castiel thought of this thing – George dropped the necklace into the extended hand. Mitchell closed his hand over it and absolutely failed to burst into flame or hiss or even give any sort of indication of pain. He didn’t even wince. Unaware of the stares he attracted, he slipped the necklace with the religious imagery into his pocket.</p><p><em>Well, I’ll be damned</em>, Dean thought before reality caught up with him and he realised that he’d already been there. <em>Been there, done that, kept the handprint on the arm.</em></p><p>Sam’s eyes were practically the size of saucers.</p><p>‘Just be careful,’ Annie fussed. She couldn’t decide which of her two housemates she should worry about more, so she flitted from one to the other until Mitchell solved the problem by drawing both Annie and George into a hug. George yelped and looked embarrassed, but Annie threw herself into it. Dean suspected she would have cried if she could. He also noted that she was far more corporeal than she should be. She should have fallen right through Mitchell and George.</p><p>She didn’t.</p><p>‘Just poltergeist out if it gets too dangerous,’ George returned.</p><p>‘Rent-a-ghost.’</p><p>‘Beg pardon?’ George at last extracted himself from the hug to stare at Annie.</p><p>‘Rent-a-ghost,’ Annie repeated. ‘It sounds nicer than poltergeisting. I’ve got to think about the effect I want to have.’</p><p>‘Well, the only effect I am going to have is that of a complete lunatic,’ George huffed. ‘I’ve got to undress in front of vampires!’</p><p>‘Yeah, George, there are things I’d rather not know,’ Mitchell said, frowning.</p><p>This directed Annie’s attention back to what they were about to go and do. She launched herself at George, who staggered under the onslaught as though she had actual weight.</p><p>Castiel beheld all of this with astonishment. ‘What are they doing?’ he asked.</p><p>Dean didn’t miss a beat. ‘Chick-flick moment.’ Not that he could blame them for it. They weren’t used to this. To them this wasn’t just another hunt. This was their lives, their future. They had a stake – ha! – in this. Truth be told, George and Mitchell were taking most of the risks too. So, he’d tease and then shut up about it.</p><p>Annie overheard them: ‘It’s hug,’ she said and then, because she still wouldn’t know self-preservation and survival instinct – then again, she was already dead – if they danced naked in front of her, she smiled and asked: ‘Would you like one?’</p><p>Castiel tilted his head and blinked in bewilderment. ‘Why?’</p><p>‘Because it’s comfy. And nice.’</p><p>This did not inspire enlightenment. ‘I have never had a… hug.’</p><p>He probably should not have said that. Annie launched herself at him and hugged him too. Cas staggered – did he feel her? – and then stood completely still for a few moments, before hesitantly hugging her back.</p><p>
  <em>Well, I never.</em>
</p><p>‘Right, time to go,’ Dean said before he could be drawn into the whole thing. He might have to admit that on some level he craved that kind of comfort for himself as well if he didn’t. Better not to go down that road.</p><p>Sam gave the good example, although Dean caught the puppy eyes at the display of so much affection before he hoisted his bag over his shoulder. Dean clapped Sam on the shoulder and was clapped on the shoulder in return and then Sam was out of the door before any chick-flick moments could ensue. Mitchell briefly clasped George’s shoulder, patted Annie on the back and nodded at Dean and Cas before he followed Sam out.</p><p>‘And then there were four,’ Annie muttered under her breath. Hang on, did ghosts even have breaths?</p><p>Castiel frowned. ‘I do not understand that reference.’</p><p>‘Now’s not the time, Cas.’ He could educate himself on human culture on his own time as far as Dean was concerned. He had some vamps to hunt. ‘You ready, George?’</p><p>The werewolf looked as though he might hurl at any moment. ‘No,’ he said, but he too took up his bag and made ready to leave. ‘Annie, just don’t look.’</p><p>‘But…’</p><p>‘Just don’t.’</p><p>‘All right.’ She flapped her hands about awkwardly.</p><p>George hopped nervously from one foot to the other. ‘We should go,’ he said, consulting his watch. ‘Moonrise is in less than thirty minutes.’</p><p>Castiel stood before them. ‘Prepare yourselves,’ he said and then gave them no time to do anything of the sort. Dean by now was somewhat prepared for the sensation of the world shifting around him suddenly and to ground to a standstill before he could even try to wrap his head around the fact that he was moving.</p><p>It still wreaked havoc on his stomach.</p><p>And even more on George, who looked a little green around the edges. ‘You going to hurl?’ Dean asked.</p><p>George drew himself up to his full height, looking indignant. ‘No.’</p><p>In that case, they should get on with it. If he looked around the corner into the street, he could see the funeral parlour. The curtains were closed, but he could tell the lights were on. Some vamp had put on something Dean did not classify as music at a volume probably audible at Bobby’s.</p><p>‘Well, at least we know they’re home.’</p><p>Annie looked up and down the street. ‘I don’t think anybody lives here.’</p><p>‘Not unless they’re sleeping in their office,’ George said. He became progressively more nervous. ‘Just don’t let me…’ The last words were aimed at Dean and he didn’t finish the sentence.</p><p>‘Course not,’ Dean said. He considered his team of very impromptu hunters and discovered that he quite liked what he saw. ‘Let’s go.’</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Mitchell drove them to the hospital and parked in the car park as if this was a normal working day for him.</p><p>‘Nervous?’ Sam asked when Mitchell shut off the engine.</p><p>‘A bit.’ He managed a tight smile. ‘The last battle I fought in was a while ago.’</p><p>Right. World War One. It was one thing knowing that a lot of vamps were a lot older than they looked, but another thing having your nose rubbed in it in such a matter-of-fact way. Once this hunt was out of the way, Sam had a million questions he’d like to ask.</p><p>He reached into his bag and pulled out a flask that he passed to Mitchell. ‘Holy water. Just don’t spill any of it on yourself.’</p><p>Mitchell considered this. ‘You know, I’ve never actually tried that. Never heard of anyone who had that used on them neither. It might not work.’</p><p>‘Better safe than sorry.’ Sam was fairly sure that it would work. If the religious imagery worked on vamps, then the water was bound to have a stronger effect. Except George’s Star of David hadn’t had any effect on Mitchell whatsoever. Could there be a psychological component, a condition of some sort that religious imagery only worked if it was used with the right intent? He was itching to hit the books and get some answers.</p><p>Which was altogether better than the other itching he found increasingly hard to ignore.</p><p>‘You all right?’ Michell asked, frowning. ‘Only you don’t look so well.’</p><p>‘Fine,’ Sam said, just a little on the snappy side.</p><p>‘Your hands are shaking and your heart rate’s too fast.’ Because of course a vampire’s stronger senses would immediately notice. ‘You do smell better than you’ve done so far, though.’ And it was this last observation that apparently set the gears in his brain in motion. ‘What are you on?’</p><p>Sam looked pointedly out the window.</p><p>‘<em>Shit</em>,’ Mitchell muttered.</p><p>The silence lingered for a few moments.</p><p>It might be up to Sam to break it. ‘It won’t be a problem.’</p><p>‘Won’t it?’ Mitchell indicated the tremor in Sam’s hand. ‘You’re sweating too and it’s not warm in this car. I’ve been in rehab, mate, and I know what addiction looks like. What are you on?’</p><p>‘Demon blood.’ He really shouldn’t have said that. He really should have kept his mouth well and truly shut. But it was a problem. He had arranged to meet with Ruby two days ago. He hadn’t reckoned with Castiel barging in and sending them thousands of miles away. He had considered calling her, but even in his own head that had sounded needy.</p><p>And now Mitchell called him an addict and shattered his carefully constructed image anyway.</p><p>‘Demon…?’</p><p>‘Blood,’ Sam said. It was too late to take it back and now that he’d begun, he might as well finish. ‘I’m psychic. The demon blood makes me stronger. I can do more.’ He should have known that such things did not come for free, that there was a price tag attached. ‘I’m going to stop,’ he blurted out.</p><p>Mitchell considered this with disbelief. ‘Right.’</p><p>Can’t kid a kidder, he supposed. Which didn’t mean that he didn’t want to stop. Kind of. When he could afford to. And the psychic thing was a part of him. The only thing the demon blood did was enhance what was already his. And yet…</p><p>Even a vampire could give up the thing that defined him. Mitchell had done it. The fact that he didn’t point that out didn’t really make things better, because they both knew he thought it. He really shouldn’t mind so much what a vampire thought at all, but he did. He cared even more about if Mitchell was going to repeat any of this to Dean. Who would have Opinions.</p><p><em>I don’t want this</em>. Sam didn’t want to be an addict. But he needed something to give him an edge over his opponent, so when Ruby had suggested this to him, he’d jumped on it. She never told him the consequences.</p><p>
  <em>And I didn’t ask.</em>
</p><p>‘We should go,’ he said.</p><p>What little regard Mitchell had gained for him had evaporated very rapidly. ‘If your addiction messes this up, I’m going to find you and kill you when this is all over.’ His eyes flashed black for a moment. The fangs were out too. If this was what Owen had seen, it was no wonder that he’d been driven over the edge.</p><p>All of that was gone when they left the car and walked into the hospital. Mitchell greeted the security people on duty with nods and smiles and was waved through without being challenged. Sam emulated that, but he needn’t have bothered; no one gave him a second look.</p><p>‘Lift’s that way.’</p><p>Of course that was where their luck ran out.</p><p>‘Mitchell! Mitchell!’</p><p>Before Sam could even try to work out where the sound was coming from, there was a tiny blonde woman in scrubs blocking their path to the lifts. Sam had a brief impression of a small kitten pretending to be a lion. She held up a phone in front of Mitchell’s face.</p><p>‘Where is he?’ she demanded. ‘What’s he up to?’</p><p>‘Hi, Nina.’ Mitchell did a step back.</p><p>Nina was not to be deterred. ‘Where’s George?’</p><p>‘Not here.’ Mitchell tried to read the text on the screen, but evidently got nowhere. ‘Nina, I’m in a bit of a hurry…’</p><p>‘I got this text just twenty minutes ago,’ Nina announced. At last she held the phone still under Mitchell’s nose so that he could actually read the thing.</p><p>Which he did: ‘<em>“Nina, I’m so sorry. Love you. George.”</em>’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Ah, shit.’</p><p>Mentally Sam echoed the sentiment. And now that he thought about it, George had been busy with his phone before Annie had attempted to hug him to death. He’d had no idea that George had a girlfriend. It seemed a bit of a risk, what with his condition. Even more of a risk, actually, since Nina clearly didn’t know the first thing about it.</p><p>‘Where is he?’ The pitch of her voice was going very shrill. ‘If he’s going to throw himself off a bridge…’</p><p>‘He’s <em>not </em>going to throw himself off a bridge.’ Whether or not he survived the night was another matter, but this did not seem the time for bringing that up and Mitchell seemed to think the same. ‘Nina, let go. I promise you, he’s not suicidal.’</p><p>But Nina had grabbed a fistful of Mitchell’s coat to stop him from going anywhere until she had the answers she wanted. ‘No. No. He’s not answering his phone and then a text like that. Where is he? Why aren’t you <em>doing</em> something?’</p><p>Mitchell held her at arm’s length. ‘Because there is nothing I can do.’ It audibly and visibly frustrated him. ‘I promise you George is not suicidal.’</p><p>‘But is he all right?’ the tiny terrifying nurse demanded.</p><p>Mitchell spared one hand to rub his forehead. ‘I don’t know.’</p><p>‘So why aren’t you making sure?’ She was like a dog with a bone. Sam got the impression that she didn’t like Mitchell much even when there wasn’t a crisis on and it certainly wasn’t getting any better now.</p><p>‘We should go,’ Sam said, glancing across the hall at the big clock on the wall. Herrick could be here at any moment. The last thing he wanted was that the vamp got bored and went back home.</p><p>‘And who are you?’ Nina demanded.</p><p>‘Mitchell’s friend, Sam,’ he introduced himself. He extended a hand, which she ignored.</p><p>‘Listen, Nina, why don’t you swing by tomorrow and we’ll explain,’ Mitchell suggested. ‘Properly explain. Just do yourself a favour, please. Go back to work and forget you saw us. We’ll explain later.’</p><p>She crossed her arms over her chest now that she had lost her grasp on his coat. ‘Really? Why should I do that?’ She considered him. ‘There’s always something weird about you. About George too, but you?’ She made a derisive sound. ‘And I should just trust you, should I? Why don’t you tell me what’s going on right now?’</p><p>‘No time,’ Mitchell said. ‘Listen, just come to the house at around ten. We’ll explain.’ He pushed her away and made a beeline for the lift, leaving Sam little choice but to follow after him.</p><p>Even so, Sam half expected Nina to run after them, but when he glanced over his shoulder, she stood very still, mouth half open, looking at something beyond his line of sight. She was still looking at it when the lift doors closed and she disappeared from sight.</p><p>‘I didn’t know George had a girlfriend,’ Sam offered by way of a conversation starter when the silence became too awkward.</p><p>‘You didn’t need to know.’</p><p>‘I am going to stop,’ Sam repeated, correctly identifying the cause of the resentment he heard.</p><p>Mitchell didn’t mince words. ‘You either quit or you don’t. You’re a bloody liability as you are.’</p><p>‘It’s not so simple…’</p><p>Mitchell misinterpreted. ‘It’s never easy.’ He rubbed the back of his neck for lack of something better to do. ‘Listen, Sam, it’s hard enough staying on the wagon <em>without</em> another addict around. One who’s drinking demon blood?’ He made the same derisive sound Nina had just made at him. ‘What kind of hunter are you anyway?’</p><p>It seemed wisest not to answer that, mainly because he wasn’t entirely sure of the answer.</p><p>The roof was empty when they emerged. It was fenced off – so no chance of either of them accidentally going over the edge – and decently lit. The numerous cigarette ends on the ground testified to its regular use by hospital staff in dire need of a smoke. Mitchell, it seemed, was a frequent contributor, because he pulled out a cigarette and lit it.</p><p>Sam’s eyebrows made a little involuntary jump. ‘You smoke?’</p><p>‘My nice little human addiction,’ said the vampire as he exhaled. ‘Everyone used to do it, before they knew what it did to your lungs. Not that I have to worry about that. Vampires don’t die of lung cancer.’</p><p>Not that Sam was aware.</p><p>‘And it’s miles better than killing people.’</p><p>Ah. Yes.</p><p>‘Want one?’</p><p>‘<em>I</em> can still die of lung cancer,’ Sam pointed out. Although most hunters certainly didn’t live long enough to die of something as ordinary as that.</p><p>‘Suit yourself.’</p><p>They waited in silence. Sam used the time to check over his arsenal of holy water, crucifixes and stakes, making sure that all of them were within easy reach. The bag itself he left in a corner. Even if Herrick would make a dash for it, there was nothing in there that could help him.</p><p>He was late. Mitchell smoked his way through half a dozen cigarettes before the door opened at long last and the man himself showed up. And he wasn’t alone. He dragged out the tiny nurse by the back of her scrubs.</p><p>‘Sorry I’m late,’ the presumed Herrick drawled. ‘I was told to bring refreshments.’</p><p>
  <em>Damn it, Dean!</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next time: it turns out that the funeral parlour is not pet-friendly, but Dean doesn’t care. Also, Nina is not a happy woman. And it shows.<br/>You will be getting the next chapter on Sunday, since I’m going to be away Monday and simply won’t have time to upload. <br/>Thank you so much for reading. Reviews would brighten my day immensely.<br/>Until Sunday!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Who Let the Dog Out?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>‘Cas, go around the back with Annie,’ Dean instructed. ‘You know where it is?’ he asked Annie.</p><p>She nodded. ‘Good luck!’</p><p>They were going to need luck, preferably by the truckload.</p><p>‘Ready?’ he asked George when the other two had gone. George was still a little greenish and Dean didn’t think it was because of his unexpected flight with Angel Air.</p><p>‘As I’ll ever be.’</p><p>It would have to be good enough.</p><p>‘You won’t…’</p><p>‘I won’t let anything happen to anything human,’ Dean said for what felt like the hundredth time. He’d seen nervous first-time hunters before, but not one of them could even hold a candle to George, who had made fussiness into a form of art.</p><p>The garbage container he was after had been conveniently moved a little closer to the door in order to make space for a minivan that parked in front of the neighbouring building, which housed a plumber according to the sign fixed to the door. The lights were off on the premises.</p><p>Dean took a short moment to check that the brakes were off, which they were. He nodded at George. ‘We’re good.’</p><p>As good as they were ever going to be anyway.</p><p>George straightened up, squared his shoulders and took a deep breath as though it was some kind of ritual. Then he pushed the door open and walked in.</p><p>The noise in there could have deafened them.</p><p>By the looks of things the vamps were right in the middle of a party. The sound system was on and some vamps were dancing. Others were having shouted conversations. Most of them appeared to be drunk, although there wasn’t a bottle in sight.</p><p>There were however four people in the middle of the room. Three of them weren’t moving. The fourth, a young man, was being fed on by three vamps at once. By the looks of things he wasn’t far behind the other three.</p><p>This might be both easier and harder than Dean had thought; easier because they were pissed as newts and harder because there were decidedly more of them than Mitchell had thought. There were thirty-odd vamps in the reception area alone, but the door leading to the staff area beyond was open and people were moving there as well. That room was apparently on a different sound system, playing something else that Dean could not possibly call music.</p><p>Nobody noticed them at first, so Dean took out his gun and shot a hole in the ceiling to get their attention.</p><p>Someone shut down the music in the reception area, but not in the other room. Vamps stopped talking. The three who were feeding dropped their prey – he went down like a stone and didn’t get up again – and rose to their feet.</p><p>‘Evening,’ Dean said. ‘Sorry for barging in, but we heard you had a party going and me? I love parties.’ He grinned at them.</p><p>They blinked back.</p><p>‘Is no one going to offer me a drink?’</p><p>Someone switched off the so-called music in the next room as well. Beside him George made a noise somewhere between choking and a whimper.</p><p>‘Two minutes,’ he hissed.</p><p>Dean nodded. ‘Really, nobody? I’ve been to funerals that had more booze.’ He let his gaze slide over the room, trying to do a quick headcount. Thirty-two in this room alone. Cas and Annie should have got to the backdoor by now, so they couldn’t get out that way and as far as he could see, the front door was the only way out of the building on this side.</p><p>‘You can stay,’ said a vamp at the back of the room. ‘The dog’s got to go.’</p><p>‘So you’re not pet-friendly, then?’</p><p>They didn’t think this was funny; a couple of them hissed. No sense of humour, these vamps. One of them moved forwards.</p><p>‘We’ve just run out of drinks,’ he said. ‘But at least you’re here now.’ He blinked. When he opened his eyes again, they were pitch-black. The fangs came out too, but Dean had seen vamps that had a mouthful of them and these two toothpicks weren’t anything like as impressive.</p><p>‘Well, if you’re going to be like that…’ He looked back at George and grinned. ‘Time to get ready.’</p><p>Then he pulled out the super soaker he purchased this afternoon. Sam had bitched about that and asked him why, to which Dean had answered why not. Sam had mentioned something about professional standards, so Dean stopped listening at that point. It was not as if he had a boss and sometimes you needed to spice up your own job in order to keep it fun.</p><p>This was fun.</p><p>Not that the vamps knew it yet; they were too busy laughing.</p><p>‘That won’t save you now,’ said the vamped-up dude, licking his lips in anticipation.</p><p>Dean hit him first on the general principle of the thing and the laughing turned to screaming instead. Always nice to know that it really did work as expected or he would have really looked like an idiot. ‘Holy water,’ Dean announced cheerfully. ‘Anyone else want a taste?’</p><p>Ordinarily he’d be fighting and killing at this stage of the proceedings, but right now his job was to protect George until George could protect himself. Which wouldn’t be long. George was quite calmly undressing himself, folding his clothes and putting them in the bag he’d brought along for that purpose.</p><p>And by now the vamps were cottoning on. ‘What’s the dog doing?’</p><p>Right on cue George whimpered again and then doubled over in pain. He dropped the bag. ‘It’s coming,’ he choked out.</p><p>As if Dean needed telling. But the transformation – Sam had immediately geeked out over the fact that this breed of werewolf actually, physically turned into a wolf, fur included – took a couple of minutes, so he had time, just a little.</p><p>‘Calm down, everyone, it’s just his time of the month.’ It did not take them long to figure out what that meant and then the panic really did set in. The smiles slid from their faces. One or two backed away a few steps. ‘Nothing to worry about; he’ll just rip off a head or two, just like any other regular girl, only with more fur and less blood. Well, not his blood anyway.’</p><p>There was naked panic now. The same sort of panic that must have marred their victims’ faces before they went in for the kill, Dean imagined. He looked at them again, but they were too pale and still not moving. Dead, if he had to take a guess. Annie might have freed a few, but evidently they had acquired a few more in the intervening time.</p><p>Sometimes he loved and hated his job at the very same time.</p><p>George whimpered again. It was the most pathetic and girly sound, but it scared the vamps out of their minds. Three of them took off running towards the back and all the others were trying to sidle up to the door as well, never letting George out of their sight.</p><p>Dean calmly strode over to the middle of the room, super soaker at the ready just in case, to ascertain the state of the four victims. None of them had a pulse. Not that he had expected it, but at least he knew for sure now. One of them was barely out of his teens. His eyes were open, his face frozen in an expression of horror that the remaining pimples couldn’t hide.</p><p>He really hated his job sometimes.</p><p>As far as Dean was aware, the vamps were going to get everything they deserved.</p><p>They were leaderless. It’s easy to have a party without anyone in charge, but now that a crisis had so unexpectedly arisen, they needed someone to tell them what to do. And Herrick wasn’t here, so the whole lot of them were talking over each other and backing away like headless chickens. Mitchell hadn’t been wrong about that.</p><p>Someone screamed in the back of the building. It cut off midway. So Cas was in. Presumably Annie was as well. Neither of them could be torn to pieces by a rampaging werewolf; Annie because she was already dead and Cas because… well, he was Cas. He could angel out if he needed to.</p><p>George’s whimpers turned to screams of pain. Dean had promised not to look, but from the corner of his eyes he could see that George was now on all fours on the ground in some pain and he didn’t look as much as a fussy college professor now. This was something else, breaking through.</p><p>Something monstrous.</p><p>The screaming stopped, but the transformation went on and on.</p><p>Time to go.</p><p>Dean left the vamps’ victims – nothing he could do for them now and they’d slow him down too much – picked up the bag George had dropped and then made for the door.</p><p>He wasn’t the only one with that bright idea. Two vamps tried to make a run for it. Since the super soaker was still in his hand, he shot a beam of water at both of them, which put a stop to the running quickly enough. He put the super soaker away and staked them both through the heart, one after the other.</p><p>They literally fell apart and crumbled into dust.</p><p>Interesting.</p><p>If he were Sam, he would have stayed around to geek out over that – Sam really didn’t get his priorities straight sometimes – but then he’d either be dead or having the real wolf experience himself next month and neither sounded good. Behind him the screaming started up again, but this time it was animalistic and the screams turned to howls pretty darn quickly.</p><p>He opened the door – the stupid little bell rang merrily above his head – and shut it behind him. The thing opened inwards, but Mitchell had been given a key once upon a time and he’d never got round to giving it back. Ideally, it was just a matter of locking up and waiting to see what happened next. The garbage container was just to give any potentially escaping vampires another obstacle to deal with while Dean staked them through the heart. Idly he reflected that at least the dust would end up straight where it belonged.</p><p>He was not a moment too soon. Inside the party had turned into a nightmare. Howls mixed with terrified screams as the killing started up in earnest.</p><p>Dean simply put the brakes on, took a stake in each hand and prepared to stand guard.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Mitchell cursed under his breath. Sam was tempted to do the same if he’d thought it would help. Nina writhed, the frantic struggling of those who know only too well they are in mortal danger, but she couldn’t seem to break free. She didn’t make a sound, but her face was a study in naked terror.</p><p>‘Let her go, Herrick,’ Mitchell pleaded, voice soft and conciliatory. ‘She has nothing to do with this.’</p><p>‘Ah, but she is your dog’s little girlfriend, isn’t she?’ Herrick didn’t even break a sweat. ‘You wouldn’t want anything to happen to her now, would you? Let’s call her insurance for good behaviour.’</p><p>‘A hostage, you mean,’ Sam said.</p><p>Herrick turned his attention on him. ‘Ah, the other Winchester.’</p><p>At first glance there was nothing much impressive about Herrick. He wasn’t tall and neither was he particularly fit. The police uniform provided extra padding to the fleshy padding he already had. But there was something about his face that made the hairs on the back of Sam’s neck stand on end. He’d met demons who’d been less scary than this vamp.</p><p>‘Here to observe the proceedings, are you? Where’s your brother?’</p><p>‘Took a girl to a party.’ Which was true. Sort of.</p><p>‘And left you to do his dirty work. Nothing new there.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, Mitchell, as invigorating as all this small talk is, shall we get down to business? I’ve got places to be, empires to create…’</p><p>‘The killing stops,’ Mitchell said. ‘You let me go. You don’t come near George and Annie. And you leave Bristol.’</p><p>Herrick barked out a laugh. ‘Leave Bristol? Why would I do that?’</p><p>‘Because the killing’s got out of hand.’ To this Sam had a quick answer. ‘You’ve been noticed.’</p><p>Herrick waved that away as if it didn’t matter. ‘No one’s going to investigate. That’s what the system is for.’ He indicated himself, just in case it wasn’t clear what he meant. ‘I <em>am</em> the police.’</p><p>‘I don’t answer to the police.’</p><p>Herrick dragged Nina up straight, as if Mitchell and Sam had somehow forgotten that she was there. ‘Such a shame that we must now speak in threats. I had hoped to solve this in a civilised manner.’</p><p>His eyes flashed black and the teeth came out.</p><p>Sam reached behind him and pulled out the super soaker that Dean had bought this afternoon. At first he’d groaned at his brother’s childishness – he had to remind himself that his brother wasn’t actually four years old sometimes – but then Dean had explained and okay, it was still childish and whimsical and Bobby would never let them live it down if he heard about it, but it could work.</p><p>Herrick laughed, but only until the first volley hit him square in the face. Instinctively he let go of Nina in favour of clawing at his face as though that could make the pain go away.</p><p>‘Nina, run!’ Mitchell urged her.</p><p>She did, but in the wrong direction. If she had any sense, she would have made for the door, back into the hospital where there were other people around. Clearly she didn’t, because she ran straight at them and hid behind them.</p><p>‘What on Earth is going on here?’ she demanded.</p><p>‘Explain later,’ Mitchell said.</p><p>‘But…’</p><p>They’d never know what she wanted to say, because Herrick had recovered from his encounter with the holy water enough to lunge forwards. Mitchell grabbed Nina and pulled her to the right, while Sam dodged to the left to avoid a collision of fangs with throat. Crap, that vamp was a lot faster than he had anticipated. Sam shot off another beam of water, but it was a crappy shot fired as he moved and it splashed harmlessly against the uniform padding.</p><p>‘That was not so nice,’ Herrick observed. The black eyes were very reminiscent of those of a demon.</p><p>Not a good association, because the craving intensified tenfold. Would his blood perhaps…?</p><p>Sam stopped himself right there. Now was definitely not the time. Instead he unleashed another volley of water and this time it was Herrick who was forced to leap out of its path. Instead it hit Mitchell, who had been behind Herrick trying to manhandle an uncooperative Nina out of harm’s way.</p><p>‘Crap!’</p><p>Mitchell simply blinked the water out of his eyes and carried on. The holy water hadn’t done him any harm as far as Sam could see. It was just water to him.</p><p><em>So intent </em>does<em> matter</em>, Sam observed with interest. If he made it back to the States in one piece, he should remember to tell Bobby about it. He filed it away for future reference.</p><p>His next shot did hit Herrick in the throat, so he used his temporary inattentiveness to re-join Mitchell and Nina, the latter of whom was now furious as well as terrified. ‘What is happening? Will somebody tell me what is happening?’ It was more of an order than a question and implied dire consequences if she didn’t get an answer sometime very soon.</p><p>So Sam gave it to her. ‘Herrick is a vampire trying to kill us all. Mitchell and I are trying to deal with him.’</p><p>That rendered her speechless.</p><p>Sam used the opportunity to shove the super soaker into her hands. ‘Holy water,’ he told her. ‘You know how to use one of these?’</p><p>‘You want me to shoot a “vampire” with “holy water”?’ The incredulity dripped from every syllable.</p><p>‘Only <em>that</em> vampire,’ Mitchell said.</p><p>Before she could ask what he meant by that, Herrick was back on his feet and ten times angrier than he had been before. Sam reached for a stake with one hand and a crucifix with the other. Mitchell only had the stake, so Herrick turned to him as the easiest prey.</p><p>Only he wasn’t, Sam realised. Mitchell still had George’s Star of David in his pocket, even if he had apparently forgotten all about it. And if the holy water didn’t hurt him when an ally accidentally shot him and the religious imagery didn’t cause him untold pain when it was the treasured possession of a good friend, then it stood to reason that he could use that treasured possession to defend himself.</p><p>‘George’s Star,’ he hissed at Mitchell. ‘Use the Star!’</p><p>Mitchell didn’t get it immediately, but only for a second or so. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the necklace. It still didn’t look like it was actually painful to him, but Herrick cringed the moment it entered his line of sight, hissing in anger and pain.</p><p>He definitely needed to have a word with Bobby.</p><p>That would have to wait, though, because this was not over yet, but at least they had the upper hand now. Herrick knew it too, because after a moment’s hesitation, he decided that this was a fight he could not win and he could always come back another day with more henchmen to finish the job. He turned around and made for the door.</p><p>Just not for very long.</p><p>Nina was a woman who’d had enough. She had been dragged up to the roof by something she’d been informed was a vampire and now found herself in the middle of a supernatural struggle she previously knew nothing about. All things considered, she had dealt with the whole supernatural revelation rather well. She was probably scared out of her wits, but she knew where the danger came from.</p><p>It turned out that she was a very good shot.</p><p>The water hit the back of Herrick’s neck. He stumbled, hissed and cursed and then went down, flat on his face. Mitchell and Sam didn’t waste any time. Both of them sprinted forwards. Sam reached him first, grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him over onto his back, waving the crucifix in his face for good measure.</p><p>Herrick hissed.</p><p>Then Mitchell was there, still holding the necklace with the Star of David in his left hand and a stake in his right. If this had been one of those cheesy movies Dean liked to watch when he thought Sam was asleep there would be a whole dramatic exchange where both parties made some final points before the villain was killed with appropriate music playing in the background.</p><p>This was not a cheesy movie. This was sudden and brutal and quick. Mitchell didn’t hesitate for even a moment. He slammed the stake into Herrick’s heart with force.</p><p>For a moment nothing happened, but then he fell apart. His skin cracked and then disintegrated into dust. All that remained were the clothes.</p><p>Sam allowed himself to sit down on the cold stones and Mitchell did the same on the other side of the pile of dust that used to be Herrick.</p><p>They weren’t allowed to bask in their triumph for long, because Nina was still there, looking oddly threatening in scrubs and with a super soaker in her hands. ‘Now will someone explain to me what’s going on?’</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next time: Mitchell and Sam have some explaining to do. Dean sets fire to something. It really wouldn’t be a proper hunt without something going up in flames, would it?<br/>Thank you very much for reading. Reviews would be appreciated.<br/>Until Friday!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Who Wants Some Tea?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>The roof didn’t have any benches – presumably to prevent against the smoking hospital staff getting too comfortable and forgetting that they had work to be getting on with – so they sat down on the stones. Nina didn’t have a coat, so Mitchell gave her his.</p><p>‘Won’t you get cold?’ she asked. ‘You were in intensive care just a few days ago.’</p><p>Mitchell pushed his shirt aside to show the area where his wound used to be. It hadn’t even scarred. All the evidence was gone. There was just smooth skin.</p><p>Nina gasped. ‘How?’</p><p>Mitchell smiled wryly. ‘Hello, vampire.’ He gave a cheerful little wave. ‘I don’t get cold either. The coat’s just for show.’</p><p>Sam filed that away for future reference too.</p><p>‘Right,’ Nina said, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘So you’re a vampire?’</p><p>Mitchell nodded.</p><p>Something occurred to her then. ‘Oh my God, is that why you work at the hospital? Are you feeding off patients?’</p><p>‘What?’ The idea appeared to be both new and disgusting to Mitchell. ‘<em>No!</em> I’m clean. I just work here.’</p><p>‘Clean?’</p><p>‘Off the blood.’</p><p>This didn’t seem to pacify her for long. ‘So why <em>do</em> you work here?’</p><p>‘Because I need the money to pay the rent.’</p><p>This threw her for a loop, as if it was completely unimaginable that something like a vampire would do something mundane as pay the rent. ‘Yeah, but…’</p><p>Mitchell huffed. ‘It’s a bit hard to get a good job when you can’t get your picture taken and your birth certificate says that you were born in 1891.’ He reached into his coat for a cigarette and lit one. ‘Best to keep a low profile before people start asking all sorts of questions they really don’t want answers to.’</p><p>That shut her up for a bit, but not for long. ‘So, you don’t show up on camera.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘I saw it.’ So that was what had caught her attention in the hall. ‘How about mirrors?’</p><p>‘Nope. Haven’t seen my face for almost a century.’</p><p>‘What about garlic?’</p><p>‘Delicious.’</p><p>‘Sunlight?’</p><p>‘Bit bright, but sunglasses help.’</p><p>‘Do you sleep in a coffin?’</p><p>‘Bed is comfier.’ The corner of his mouth curled up. He was enjoying this, wasn’t he?</p><p>Sam really wished he had a notebook so that he could take this all down. As soon as he had his laptop, he’d have to do some more research. At the very least he’d like to figure out why vampires and werewolves were so different from what he was used to on his side of the ocean.</p><p>Nina considered this. ‘Anything else I need to know?’</p><p>‘I have to be invited into someone’s house before I can enter,’ Mitchell offered.</p><p>‘Really? Why?’</p><p>He shrugged. ‘To give the humans a fighting chance, I guess. Same with the religious stuff. I’m not so good with that.’</p><p>Nina shook her head before he had even finished talking. ‘No, you had that Star of David and the holy water didn’t do anything either.’</p><p>‘Intent,’ Sam said. It was about time he made some sort of contribution to this conversation anyway. ‘I meant to hit Herrick and got Mitchell by mistake. I didn’t want to hurt him. And the Star of David belongs to George, who’s your friend. I guess you have to want to use it against a vamp for it to work like that.’</p><p>Nina looked at him at last. ‘So, what are you? Another vampire?’</p><p>‘Human. Hunter.’ When she didn’t immediately get it, he added: ‘Anything supernatural steps out of line, I deal with it.’</p><p>‘With a super soaker.’ Nina was not very impressed.</p><p>‘Sometimes.’ <em>Thanks again, Dean</em>. ‘Only if it’s filled with holy water.’</p><p>‘So, what is George then? A wizard?’</p><p>‘Werewolf,’ Mitchell answered. He pointed towards the full moon in the sky. ‘That’s why he can’t answer his phone right now.’</p><p>‘Oh. <em>Oh</em>.’ She thought about this. ‘So why did he send me that text? He made it sound like he was about to die and…’ Some of her earlier anxiety returned.</p><p>Sam took pity on her. ‘George is taking out the rest of the vampires. My brother, a friend and Mitchell’s housemate Annie are helping, but there are quite a few of them and he was a little nervous about it. He should be fine.’ It was Dean he was really worried about. George was only a danger to everyone else, Castiel could look after himself and Annie was already dead. Dean was supposed to go out and stand guard as soon as George started to change, but Sam knew his brother. This wouldn’t be the first time he threw a perfectly good plan overboard for what only he thought was a very good reason.</p><p>‘Should be…?’</p><p>‘Nothing we can do about it now,’ Sam said. ‘Our job was to cut the head off the snake.’ He indicated the pile of dust. ‘They are doing the rest.’</p><p>‘I want to see him.’</p><p>‘You can’t,’ Mitchell said. ‘Not now. Listen, Nina, you’ve got to think about this. No, you do,’ he insisted when she opened her mouth to protest. ‘George and I, we’re not human. We’re trying to be, but we’re not. You need to think about if you want to get involved with that. Because this,’ he made an arm gesture in the late Herrick’s general direction, ‘all goes with it. We’re not normal and it’s not always safe.’</p><p>Compliments to her, because she did actually seem to give it some thought. ‘Why didn’t he tell me?’</p><p>‘He likes you,’ Mitchell replied promptly. ‘Really likes you. George likes to keep the wolf separate from everything else.’ The fact that he really couldn’t was left unsaid, although Sam suspected that it had been on the tip of his tongue. ‘Think it over. Properly. There aren’t many of us who get a choice in this.’</p><p>Nina let that sink in and so did Sam.</p><p>When neither of them said anything, Mitchell rose to his feet. ‘I’m going home.’</p><p>Nina stood too. ‘I’m coming.’</p><p>Mitchell groaned. ‘Nina, George is not there yet and I need to sleep. I almost died forty-eight hours ago,’ he added, rubbing the spot for effect, although Sam suspected it wasn’t all an act. ‘Just drop by tomorrow morning.’</p><p>Curiosity and worry battled with professionalism. The latter won. ‘Oh, fine. So, what am I going to do? Am I just going to go back to work and pretend like nothing has happened?’</p><p>Mitchell shrugged.</p><p>Nina took a deep breath, then looked at the pile of dusty Herrick. ‘Go on, then. I’ll fetch a broom and sweep him up.’ She shooed both Sam and Mitchell back inside.</p><p>They made their way back to the car in silence. Sam toyed with the idea of calling Dean, but he’d be up to his eyeballs in vampires by now, so best not. Dean would call when he was done. Or not. Sam was prepared to give him until sunrise at the latest.</p><p>‘Good work,’ he told Mitchell when they were back in the car.</p><p>Mitchell nodded. ‘There was a moment there when I thought…Were you…?’</p><p>Sam looked away. ‘I’m going to stop.’ Before Mitchell could comment on his choice of words, he asked: ‘How did you do it?’</p><p>‘Went to a friend who’d gone clean a while before I did, had him tie me to a chair and toughed it out. Cold turkey. Worst week of my life.’ He started the engine and drove them out of the car park.</p><p>Sam had to do a double-take. ‘You were tied to a chair for a <em>week</em>?’</p><p>‘It was a comfy chair.’ Mitchell kept his eyes on the road. ‘You can’t do it on your own, Sam.’</p><p>It was not the encouraging advice he’d hoped for.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Dean’s watch was entirely uneventful, despite the cacophony of noise coming from the building. Screams and howls held a contest for what was loudest without a clear winner. Then there was the noise of breaking furniture and nails on walls and wood. At some point the lights went off and didn’t come on again.</p><p>To Dean’s endless disappointment not a single vamp escaped through the window.</p><p>The longer he waited, the less screams there were. Even the howling and growling seemed to move to the back of the building. If he had to guess, he’d say that it was almost over.</p><p>Annie appeared out of nowhere. ‘It’s done.’</p><p>‘Where’s Cas?’</p><p>‘Locking the wolf in the back,’ she said, looking a little embarrassed. ‘No windows.’</p><p>‘Ah.’ It was really not that hard to feel sorry for George, even if he wouldn’t remember a thing about it in the morning. Werewolves always got a bit of a raw deal. Some of them never even knew what they were, well, the ones in the States anyway. George admitted that he did not remember what the wolf did, but Dean suspected that he remembered the transformation – or a part of it at least – well enough.</p><p>‘What about the vamps?’ he asked.</p><p>‘All gone.’ She sat down on the ground and wrapped her arms around her knees. ‘I’ve never even been in a fight before…’ She made a wide arm gesture. ‘Before all this.’</p><p>Dean sat down next to her. ‘You did pretty well.’</p><p>Annie pondered that. ‘I don’t think they got doors,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see any. Do you think… do you think that they just stop to exist? Do vampires get an afterlife?’</p><p>This was the kind of question Dean never bothered to ask and one she was probably better off asking Cas, who of course wasn’t here yet. He’d never seen a vampire in hell. Which did not say much, because there were a lot of people in hell – something most of the living did not want to know about – and he hadn’t seen them all.</p><p>‘I don’t know,’ he said, which was the honest answer.</p><p>‘So Mitchell…?’</p><p>‘I don’t know, Annie.’</p><p>‘We won’t let anything happen to him then.’ It was the kind of tone that suggested arguing the point was not going to do him any favours here. ‘We won’t.’ But she sounded all kinds of gloomy and depressed, which was not her default state.</p><p>‘Why don’t you make us a cup of tea?’ he suggested, because if she didn’t have to drink it, then neither did he. And it might make her feel better at least.</p><p>‘Can’t,’ she said, but a hesitant smile showed through. ‘George smashed the kettle.’</p><p>‘Coffee then?’</p><p>She looked a little bit sheepish. ‘He… ehm… kind of smashed the whole kitchenette. And then a vampire started throwing knives at him, so I threw him against the wall and Castiel finished him off.’</p><p>‘Team work.’</p><p>‘We were pretty good.’ She twisted the hem of her shirt between her fingers. ‘I didn’t actually kill anyone, though.’ She looked at her feet. ‘I dropped my stake and it rolled under the counters.’</p><p>Sometimes… ‘Annie, you’re a ghost. You could have pulled it back with your ghostly powers.’</p><p>She seemed surprised to hear it. ‘I can?’</p><p>‘If you can throw stuff away, then you can make it come to you too, yeah.’ Which was a major pain in the arse too. Then again, a clueless ghost like Annie could use all the help she could get. ‘You should try and get some practise in.’</p><p>Somewhere in the back of the building the wolf was still tearing anything it could get its claws and teeth into. Dean understood now why George liked to think of it as something unconnected to him; the beast was nothing like the fussy human. He <em>really</em> hoped human George didn’t remember anything of this whole thing.</p><p>Castiel appeared out of nowhere. ‘The wolf cannot escape,’ he announced, because small talk was still a little beyond him.</p><p>‘God knows what the police are going to make of all of this,’ Annie said.</p><p>‘Not much,’ Dean assured her. ‘Didn’t I say? We’re going to set fire to it as soon as George sheds his fur.’</p><p>She poked his side. He actually felt that. ‘That’s not funny.’</p><p>It was a bit.</p><p>‘Will he be all right?’ she asked, all serious again.</p><p>‘He’ll be fine,’ Dean said. ‘He won’t remember any of it.’ Not beyond the initial transformation at any rate, which did not seem the thing to mention. And, because it seemed the thing to do and Sam wasn’t around to see, he put an arm around her shoulder. He was a little surprised that it did rest on something that looked and kind of felt like a shoulder and that it didn’t fall right through it. Annie wasn’t an ordinary ghost anyway.</p><p>She wasn’t warm, but she was a lot more solid than any ghost had any right to be. She put her head on his shoulder, but didn’t say anything. If Sam would ever ask Dean about it, he would say that he didn’t hate it. If he was however really honest with himself, he might admit that he liked it. More than he probably should. There had been too few friendly touches in his recent history.</p><p>He sent off a text to Sam with his free hand. <em>Vamps all dead, wolf contained</em>. Then it was a matter of waiting. Castiel had no idea what to do with that, so he just stood, back ramrod straight, staring down the street, until Annie invited him to sit with them. For a moment he tilted his head quizzically as if this was quite a new concept to him, but then he sat down on Annie’s other side. Annie put an arm around his shoulder too.</p><p>It was strangely peaceful.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Mitchell and Sam were the first ones back. Sam got Dean’s text just as Mitchell reversed into a very tight parking spot. He took the news quite calmly, as in he didn’t say a word and his face gave nothing away either.</p><p>Once inside, Mitchell fell onto the couch and didn’t move again.</p><p>‘You all right, dude?’ Sam asked.</p><p>‘Fine.’ But he didn’t get up.</p><p>Sam was not well-versed in vampire care – or care of any human being other than Dean, come to think of it – but they were on the same side, so perhaps he should do something, but a text on his phone distracted him.</p><p><em>Where are you?</em> Ruby demanded from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.</p><p>It was the last in a series of texts all sent in the past five hours or so, sounding alternatively worried and annoyed. <em>I’m putting my life on the line here for this</em>, read the second to last. <em>The least you can do is let me know what’s going on. </em></p><p>Since Mitchell had apparently dropped off to sleep – could vampires wake up with an aching back, he wondered, because if they could, Mitchell was not going to feel good after a couple of hours in that position – and was unlikely to make an active contribution to any sort of conversation, he scrolled through the rest.</p><p>
  <em>Are you in trouble?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sam, where are you?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You should keep this up so you can get stronger!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Sam!</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You’ve missed our meet. Are you okay?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hey Sam, give me a call when you get this.</em>
</p><p>He leaned back against the wall and thought. On one hand he really needed the edge over the demons, but on the other… It had become increasingly clear that there was a price to pay and that, on the whole, he was well on his way to becoming something that may not be all that easy to distinguish from Herrick and his merry band of addicts.</p><p><em>On a hunt, talk later</em>, he texted back to Ruby.</p><p>But that was delaying the decision and he knew it. Yes, he needed something that made him stronger, but he had started because… well, because Ruby told him he needed it. Dean wasn’t strong enough after his stay in hell. He was a liability, off his game and who was going to pick up the pieces if not Sam?</p><p>Except Dean was doing well, really well. Yeah, he had been through a lot of crap that he of course didn’t want to talk to Sam about – what else was new? – but he was doing well on hunts. His judgements were on point. He hadn’t dropped the ball even once since his return actually.</p><p>So that was that excuse down the drain. Sam watched it go and realised that he didn’t have another.</p><p>He was becoming far too dependent on the blood. What was it that Mitchell had said again? <em>They’re addicts. And they don’t want to go clean</em>. Mitchell had to be tied to a chair for a week to break the habit. He had very deliberately not asked how long ago that was. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, not if Mitchell was still struggling with it.</p><p>So he sent off another text. <em>I’m quitting. We’re done.</em></p><p>Then he blocked her number, put his phone away and went into the kitchen to see if anywhere in this tea-soaked mess he could perhaps find some decent coffee. As nice little human addictions went, caffeine was miles better than cigarettes anyway.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>The moon set a little before dawn, but they only went in when Cas said George was human again. Annie pushed the container – brakes still on – back to its original position and then rent-a-ghosted into the building before Dean had even unlocked the door.</p><p>She was back within ten seconds. ‘He’s okay. He’s asleep.’</p><p>Dean would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved to hear it. ‘Cas, can you take him back?’ he asked.</p><p>‘Do you not require assistance?’</p><p>‘Have you ever set fire to a building before?’ Sure, he was probably a formidable warrior, but pyromania did not sound like a very angelic trait to Dean. ‘And make it look like it caught fire naturally,’ he added when he realised that Cas could probably reduce this place to a hole in the ground if he was in a smiting mood.</p><p>Cas, who had been about to point that out, reconsidered and shook his head. ‘No. I shall bring George home and then return for you.’</p><p>Probably a good idea. It might be best not to hang around once the fire got going. Being arrested by the Brits was not on his to-do list. Besides, for all he knew he might be forced to share a cell with Owen.</p><p>The place was a mess. It was impossible to see that it had ever been a funeral parlour or even a business. The wood panelling was scratched and there were deep grooves in the floor. Body parts lay everywhere.</p><p>‘It’s like a jigsaw puzzle,’ Dean told the other two, neither of whom appeared to appreciate the sort of post-hunt jokes Dean liked. Cas might not actually know what a jigsaw puzzle was, come to think of it.</p><p>Annie rent-a-ghosted over a very large puddle of blood. ‘Will this burn?’ she wondered.</p><p>‘Wooden furniture, wood panelling and carpet? This place will go up like a rocket.’ The structure would be mostly fine – the building was made of bricks – but everything inside would be toast when he was done. The bodies might need some extra help, but he could manage that. Or rather, the jerrycan filled with petrol could manage that.</p><p>It was interesting to see that George had apparently been more than capable of killing vampires on his own, without the use of a stake. Dean’s idea was to set a rampaging wolf among the vamps to get them nice and panicky and maybe torn up a bit so that Cas and Annie had an easier job. But these werewolves could kill vampires.</p><p>Nice.</p><p>George was in the back room, where there was less blood, but more dust. Here too the walls and floor were scratched to within an inch of their lives. Not as much wood here as there was in the front, but the front was the place that needed to be dealt with more anyway. They could afford to leave this place mostly untouched.</p><p>The police wouldn’t be able to make any sense of this anyway.</p><p>‘Want to help?’ he asked Annie. ‘Or do you want to go home?’ He suspected she might.</p><p>She drew herself up straight. ‘No, this is my life now.’</p><p>‘Afterlife,’ Dean grinned at her.</p><p>She actually stuck her tongue out at him.</p><p>Dean didn’t look at George, because well, that would be inappropriate and Sam would bitch about that. And there was something sad about the whole picture anyway. He knew George hated what he was. It was only decent not to linger over it.</p><p>So he left George to Cas and moved back to the reception area with Annie. ‘See if you can collect the furniture,’ he instructed. ‘Pile it in the middle of the room.’ Where he would bring the bodies. ‘Maybe you can use your ghostly powers.’ He grinned some more.</p><p>She grinned back. ‘Ghostly or ghastly?’</p><p>He shrugged. ‘What’s the effect you’re going for?’</p><p>She was one ghost he was happy to leave right where he found her. It was hard to imagine her becoming vengeful. Besides, she’d already had her revenge. Annie was a bit like a little sister he never knew he wanted. Only deader. It was easy to forget sometimes that she wasn’t alive when she very much acted as though she was. Dean wondered if perhaps she too sometimes forgot that she wasn’t alive anymore.</p><p>He heard the whoosh from the back room that told him that Cas had gone with George.</p><p>‘Maybe it’s better if you go outside now,’ Dean said when he picked up the jerrycan and doused the pile of bodies with it.</p><p>‘I’m not going to burn to death, am I?’ Annie retorted. ‘Maybe I should do it?’</p><p>‘Nah, I’ll be fine.’ He’d lost count of the times he’d had to set something on fire. Mostly corpses of course, but that seemed like the kind of thing not to say around a ghost. He emptied the last of the contents of the jerrycan and then pulled out a bag of salt, on the premise that he was rather safe than sorry. He didn’t think vamps could come back as ghosts – cheating death twice seemed like a little too much power for anyone – but these British vamps were weird and why take chances when he had salt on him anyway?</p><p>‘Is that salt?’ Annie asked.</p><p>‘Yeah.’</p><p>‘From my kitchen?’</p><p>‘… Yes?’</p><p>‘Why?’</p><p>‘Purification,’ he explained. ‘Just to be sure that they won’t come back as ghosts.’</p><p>Annie shuddered. ‘Could they do that?’</p><p>‘Don’t think so, but why take chances?’</p><p>She considered that. ‘That’s actually a good point.’ She looked around her. ‘I don’t see them anymore, so that’s good, isn’t it? Not that I’ve seen anyone die before. A normal person,’ she added as clarification at the end.</p><p>‘It’s fine, Annie.’</p><p>It wasn’t supposed to be easy to see people die. Dean had got used to it out of sheer necessity. That didn’t really make it any easier, though. At least she hadn’t been here to see the vamps draining the life out of their victims, who were by now no longer distinguishable from the monsters that killed them. And he wasn’t going to tell her about that either.</p><p>He reconsidered his decision. ‘Here, want to light the fire?’ he asked, holding out the matches to her. At least it might be a distraction and like she said, she couldn’t actually burn to death.</p><p>‘Really?’</p><p>‘You’re a hunter now.’ A ghostly hunter, but a hunter – of sorts – all the same. ‘And it’s not as if you can set fire to yourself.’</p><p>‘Is that what you do, then?’ she asked interestedly. ‘Setting fire to things?’</p><p>Dean grinned at her. ‘Best job in the world.’</p><p>A lot of the time it wasn’t, but, Dean reflected when he watched the funeral parlour go up from across the street with one arm on the shoulder of the friendly neighbourhood ghost, it definitely had its moments.</p><hr/><p> </p><p>Castiel only stayed long enough to drop a very groggy and still mostly naked George off at the pink house before he disappeared again. Mitchell woke up and dragged himself from the couch to help George up the stairs. Not long after that Sam heard the water running in the bathroom, so he assumed that George was about to wash off the evidence of last night.</p><p>Mitchell returned shortly after and put the kettle on.</p><p>‘You all right?’ Sam asked.</p><p>‘I could sleep for a week,’ Mitchell replied and yawned the evidence of that.</p><p>Sam knew how that felt. ‘The wound still hurting?’</p><p>‘A bit. Twinges. It’s mostly healed.’ But he rubbed at it again. ‘Herrick missed the heart. He always had a rubbish aim.’</p><p>The conversation petered out after that. They heard George stumbling around upstairs, then a boing and a startled yelp as he stubbed his toe on the furniture. The corners of Mitchell’s mouth curled up in the barest hint of a smile. Sam suspected that this might be the closest these supernatural creatures ever got to normal.</p><p>Dean, Annie and Castiel returned just as George was coming down the stairs. Dean smelled of smoke and he missed half an eyebrow, but there was no missing his good mood when he sauntered into the kitchen and snatched a piece of toast off the table.</p><p>‘We came, we saw, we kicked their undead asses!’ he announced triumphantly.</p><p>‘And roasted yourself on a barbecue?’ Mitchell suggested. He wrinkled his nose at the stench.</p><p>‘We should have brought marshmallows,’ Annie said wistfully.</p><p>George shook his head. ‘You can’t eat them, Annie!’</p><p>‘Your point?’ Clearly she suspected that George had a great many points he could be making and he was indeed gearing up to do just that, so she continued: ‘Breakfast, anyone?’</p><p>‘Already made it,’ Mitchell said with a winning smile. ‘That reminds me, George, we ran into Nina last night.’ He rattled off the highlights of their night to an increasingly pale George. Looking at him, you could be forgiven for thinking that the world was about to come to an untimely end.</p><p>Of course, it still might.</p><p>George’s concerns were slightly less pressing, but one wouldn’t know it from his behaviour. Barely had the last word left Mitchell’s mouth, before he turned around with a whimpered ‘Nina’ on his lips, already reaching for his phone. He thundered up the stairs. Somewhere a door slammed shut.</p><p>‘That went well,’ Mitchell said. ‘Breakfast?’ He offered a plate piled high with toast to Castiel, who stared at it in bewilderment.</p><p>‘I don’t need human sustenance.’</p><p>Mitchell gave the good example and took a generous bite out of his own toast. ‘Neither do I, but it’s tasty.’</p><p>Castiel hesitantly took a piece and stared at it. ‘We must depart,’ he announced. ‘You have work to do.’</p><p>‘What? Like now?’ Dean demanded. Sam had a lingering suspicion that he may be the only one in the whole world who could take that tone with Castiel and not get killed for it. ‘Dude, just because you don’t need sleep…’</p><p>‘Ah, yes, you require rest.’</p><p>‘And food.’ Dean held up the half-eaten toast to demonstrate what you were actually supposed to do with it. ‘And maybe something to drink.’</p><p>Annie got the hint and perked up. ‘Right, who wants some tea?’</p><p>Sam just sat down again. It looked like they were going to be some time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Just the epilogue left now: choose your own ending. <br/>The epilogue will be up on Sunday, since once again I’ll be exceedingly busy on Monday.<br/>Until then!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Epilogue: Choose Your Own Ending</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>It is very well possible that in the greater scheme of things this little incident, this one hunt, made barely a ripple in the pond. Life is not always so changeable, after all. People don’t always change course because of one thing that happened to them.</p><p>As such it is quite possible, even likely, that despite all of this Mitchell will eventually fall off the wagon. All vampires do, sooner or later. It’s not in their nature to stay off the blood. There may not be a Box Tunnel incident. It may not even be for another few years. Mitchell may hold out longer than most, but eventually something will give and he’ll do something he can’t come back from. And then George will deal with him, because he must. Maybe Mitchell will beg him to do it, to save him in the only way he can be saved.</p><p>And nothing really changes.</p><p>As for George, of course he can’t protect Nina forever. It doesn’t matter how careful he is. The wolf is not. One day Nina will be somewhere she shouldn’t be and George may regret it to his dying days, but there’s no cure for being a werewolf. They might try one, before they realise just how bad the people offering said cure are and maybe they will walk away from it. They’ll still be werewolves. And well, there isn’t a vampire who doesn’t know George’s name now. He’s made enemies. Powerful enemies. Eventually this is going to come back to bite him in the arse.</p><p>And nothing changes.</p><p>Not for the better.</p><p>And Annie? She’s a ghost. There’s no changing that either. She’ll stick around, at least so long as her housemates do. She clings to them, not the house, which is just as well when they have to leave it. But a ghost she remains and as such she needs to cling to something. When first Mitchell goes and then George and Nina, perhaps she’ll just fall apart, like dust on the wind. Perhaps she’ll cling to a semblance of life and eventually become the sort of creature that attracts the attention of hunters. Even if she does go out in a blaze of glory, hers is not a happy fate. It was never going to be. Ghosts don’t get happy endings.</p><p>No big changes there either.</p><p>Sam and Dean plunge right back into their violent struggle to stave off the end of the world. We all know how that ends. Sam goes off the rails. Addictions are hard to break. Impossible even. He knows that now, so when the struggle becomes too hard, well, he doesn’t feel too guilty. It was inevitable, after all.</p><p>Everything remains the same.</p><p>The brothers go right back to the war they never really stopped fighting. They just do their job, just like they’ve always done and always will. The cycle of violence and struggles, of unnecessary drama and miscommunication, of betrayal and reconciliation continues. They win some, they lose some. They lose some more. They never come to rest.</p><p>The destination remains the same as it’s always been. The minor details altered along the way don’t count for much. If they count at all.</p><p>Castiel is there for most of that and it takes its toll on him. He falls, he doesn’t, he falls again. He loses his way and he redeems himself. He doesn’t regret his choices, not as such, but he’s never truly happy, or even content.</p><p>There is no happily ever after and there was never going to be. People like that are not the kind who are destined for happiness. Or old age.</p><p>In the greater scheme of things this one meeting, these few days, are nothing more than a blip on the radar, a fond memory perhaps. They’ll occasionally wonder how it’s all going on the other side of the ocean, but they’re all too wrapped up in their own problems to do anything more than that. They never meet again.</p><p>This, my friends, is what we call a worst case scenario.</p><p>But…</p><p>Everyone knows that they very seldom happen, if they happen at all. I would therefore like to invite the reader to consider another, perhaps more realistic scenario.</p><p>Vampires and related supernatural baddies tend avoid Bristol like the plague nowadays. There are no more vampires and, now that rumour is going around that the three weirdos in the pink house have hunters on stand-by, very good hunters at that, they stay away. There is just one vampire-related incident, about a year later. It’s really a shame that this is the exact time the Winchesters are staying over for reasons of their own.</p><p>There’s never another incident.</p><p>As the government is so fond of saying after yet another homemade catastrophe: lessons were learned.</p><p>And without the vampires there to pull him back into the murky world of blood and power, Mitchell manages to stay on the wagon. The struggle is continuous and twice he almost fails. That’s where his friends come in. The first time it happens, about six months after the vampire incident, George physically pins him down until the urge passes. He also shouts helpful comments about his friend who’s forgotten to take his medication to the people in the shopping centre. Mitchell gives him hell about that later while Annie supplies the both of them with more tea than they can drink and they laugh over it. He doesn’t say how grateful he is, but they both know it and that’s what counts.</p><p>The second time is about three years later, on a rainy afternoon in the hospital, and once more it’s George to the rescue. He apologises profusely for knocking his friend out with a tray later and surely Mitchell does have a headache for about twelve hours, but by then he’s firmly back in control and he doesn’t come so close.</p><p>Ever again.</p><p>Bit by bit, he conquers his own nature and none are prouder than his housemates. When five years have passed without incident they throw him a bit of a party and hand him a certificate stating that he is now fit for public consumption.</p><p>There are Winchester signatures on it as well.</p><p>Mitchell hangs it above his bed.</p><p>Meanwhile George’s love life progresses at a pace easily outmatched by a snail until Nina has quite enough of his bullshit and proposes to him in front of the resident vampire and ghost, both of whom are cheering her on with extreme enthusiasm. George flails for about five minutes before he manages a yes and then it’s Mitchell’s turn to flounder as George promptly names him the best man.</p><p>A task which he takes far too serious according to some.</p><p>But everyone agrees that it’s a lovely wedding.</p><p>Nina moves in and there even is a baby at some point. George manages to fret himself nearly to death for the entirety of Nina’s pregnancy, but the baby is born both healthy and human. George nevertheless frets some more – Nina eventually sedates him just to have a break – until after the first full moon after the birth. The baby stubbornly refuses to sprout fur and fangs – ‘For God’s sake, George, she won’t even teeth for another few months!’ – and he relaxes at last.</p><p>And if this child has the most eclectic bunch of godparents, no one ever says anything about it.</p><p>Annie is happier than she’s ever been in life. She has her house, she has her friends and, after a while, she even has love again and isn’t that a surprise? She doesn’t make a big fuss about it, but when Nina’s expecting and they need a place to turn into a nursery, Annie vacates her room and moves in with Mitchell. George somehow manages to not pick up on this for the grand total of six months.</p><p>There is a multitude of bickering and good-natured abuse over that.</p><p>Sam doesn’t go off the rails. If even a vampire can change his ways and go off the blood after almost a century, then he can give it up after a few months. But addictions don’t go quietly, especially not when temptation dangles itself – or <em>her</em>self, in this case – before him at every available opportunity. Life continues in this vein until one day Dean catches her in the act of seduction, gets hold of a handy little knife and puts an end to Ruby’s wiles there and then on a permanent basis.</p><p>The conversation that follows that isn’t fun.</p><p>By the end of it Dean hauls his younger brother to Bobby’s panic room for the detoxing session from hell. It’s hands down the worst week of Sam’s life – and Dean’s too, although he keeps his mouth well shut about that – but by the end of that he’s clean. And he stays that way.</p><p>It’s not an easy road they have ahead of them, because both sides keep trying to pull them in, but although the seals break by the bucketload, the last one never does. Sam and Dean go into hiding for a while – this part may or may not be taking place in a certain pink house – until eventually everyone comes to the conclusion that the apocalypse isn’t going to happen. Tough luck, people. Better luck next time.</p><p>Whenever that may be.</p><p>The general consensus is that both sides are far too embarrassed for an immediate rematch, so no one mentions it for a good long while. They don’t forget, but they can pretend to. Egos are saved in the act of doing so.</p><p>Life returns to normal. Well, Winchester normal, which is not quite the same thing. There are hunts and, eventually, a bunker, a place to put down roots. They have the Bristol gang over for the housewarming party, flown in especially by Angel Air, since for some reason neither Mitchell nor Annie can get a passport.</p><p>The most interesting part is the bit where Dean gets to explain to Bobby and the Harvelle women that they have somehow managed to strike up a friendship with a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost. Sam can’t stop laughing for thirty minutes. Neither can Mitchell, once Jo stops trying to decapitate him.</p><p>They have a grand time after that. In fact, it’s so grand that they decide to do it again sometime. And so they do. Bristol plays host the next time.</p><p>The city may never recover.</p><p>Castiel still falls. Unfortunately there is no avoiding that. He likes humanity. According to his brethren, he likes them far too much. He especially likes those who aim for humanity even when they themselves haven’t got it. Their natures are very different, but he feels a certain kinship with the unlikely trio in the little pink house and as a result the trio becomes a quartet with startling regularity. It gets a bit cramped once Nina joins and they become a quintet, but since Cas does not need to sleep and so has no need of a bedroom, this is not the problem it would seem.</p><p>He still needs to sort out things with Sam and Dean in the States every once in a while and he treats the bunker like his favourite bed and breakfast, but when he leaves the pink house in Bristol for these visits, he leaves the house in a better state than in which he found it. There’s never any trouble with the pipes again. Ever. A window miraculously stops leaking, the paint looks so much fresher and, on one occasion, the demolition order for the by now quite lovely pink house vanishes without a trace and is never seen again.</p><p>Certainly not by the city council.</p><p>Life is not always easy, but it is quite good. No one dies. No one gets seriously hurt for long. They aren’t always happy, because that would be the stuff of fairy tales and that’s not what they’re like. They are however almost always content. There’s friendship and love and – don’t forget – lots and lots of tea.</p><p>It’s a much nicer picture than the first one, don’t you think?</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And so we’ve come to the end of this story. I hope you’ve all enjoyed it. Reviews would be very much appreciated. I’d love to know what you think. Either way, I would like to thank you all very much for sticking with this little tale to the end. A very happy Christmas everyone!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>